The Chief Commissioner of Delhi, exercising his special powers under section 3(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, issued an order dated April 9, 1930 constituting a commission, which was known as the Delhi Conspiracy Commission. The Commission was directed that certain persons shall be tried by it for the offence of conspiring to wage a war against the British King. The number of accused to be tried by the Commission was 24 in all. Out of these 24 persons, 14 were arrested and produced before the Commission, while 9 were declared absconding and 1 had died. Though only 24 persons were accused of the offence, during the trial it transpired that there were a large number of persons who had participated in the venture. It was an Indian revolutionary movement directed against the British to win India's freedom by violent revolutionary means.
The three-member Commission was constituted of Mr. L.S.White - President, Mr. Kanwar Sain - Member and Mr. Amir Ali - Member. During the trial of the accused persons, the Crown was represented by Chaudhary Zafarullah Khan, Bar-at-Law with Khan Sahib Mohamed Amin and Sardar Bhag Singh, Court Inspector. The accused were represented by Mr. Asaf Ali, Bar-at-Law with Mr. B. Banarji and Mr. Baljit Singh.
On 14 May 1931, the following 9 accused were present before the Commission: Mr. N.K.Nigam, Mr. B.R. Gupta, Mr. Rudra Dutt Mishra, Mr. Bhagirath Lal, Mr. Hardwari Lal Gupta, Mr. K. R. Gupta, Mr. Harkesh Singh, Gajanand Potdar and Mr. Kapur Chand.
On that day, the crown put an approver Mr. Kailashpati as a witness of the alleged crime in the witness box and proceeded to administer an oath before examining him. On this, Mr. Asaf Ali, representing the accused persons, raised an objection to the oath being administered on the ground that there was no legal proof that a pardon has been tendered to and accepted by Mr. Kailashpati; that till such proof was forthcoming he could not be regarded as a witness (to whom the oath must be administered under the Indian Oaths Act); that he was therefore an accused person and that the administeration of an oath to him was contrary to the provisions of section 342 (4) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The objection was opposed by the crown on the ground that the proceedings of the Magistrate, which purported to record the tender of a pardon to Mr. Kailashpati and its acceptance by him, were a part of the record put before the Commission and were sufficient proof that the pardon had been tendered and accepted; and that in any case Mr. Kailashpati was not an accused before the Commission and therefore the provisions contained in section 342 (4) of the Code did not apply in the case.
On the contentions of the parties, the Commission observed that in view of its decision it had arrived at on the objection raised by the defence it was not necessary for it to find out whether the pardon had been tendered or accepted; that section 342 (2) of the Code could not apply to Mr. Kailashpati; that Mr. Kailashpati had not been made an accused person in this case and the Commission had not taken cognizance of any offence alleged to have committed by him, although it is alleged that he had been a party to the offences for which the accused before the Commission had been placed on trial and that he could also have been placed on trial with them for those offences; that in no sense he was an accused person before the court to whom an oath could not be administered. Thus, the Commission overruled the objection and directed the administration of an oath to him.
The oath was administered to him on 14 May 1931. he gave his name as Kailashpati Asthana son of Hirday Narain, age 24 years, caste Kayasth, resident of village Muftiganj in District Jaunpur in U.P. His memory was phenomenal and he gave such a vast volume of detailed information on every minor and major subject, which ran into about 900 pages of deposition by way of examination, cross examination and re-examination, that it became impossible for the prosecution to tie the loose ends of the story to secure conviction for the accused. It was primarily for this reason that at the final stage of the trial, the Commission was disbanded by the Government before a verdict could be given by it.
The prosecution in addition to Kailashpati also presented other approvers in support of its case of the alleged offences. Girwar Singh son of Ghasi Ram, caste Rajput, aged 22 or 23 years, resident of village Harra Police Station Sardhana District Meerut in U.P. was also tendered pardon by the Magistrate, which was accepted by him, and was produced on 24 February 1932 by the prosecution in support of its case.
Another approver Dandpani Venkat Tailang son of Venkat Rao Gopal Tailang, aged 21 or 22 years, caste Dakshni Brahmin, resident of Jhansi in U.P. was examined by the prosecution on 8 March 1932. Yet another approver examined was P.W. 14 Ram Lal son of Ganga Ram, caste Chhatri, aged 23 years, student, resident of Saugor.Approver Madan Gopal son of B. Kishan Lal aged 24 years, Caste Yadav, occupation dairy-man, resident of Ajmere in Rajputana was also examined as P.W. 15 by the Crown.
Approver Bal Kishon (alias Kishen Bal) son of Ramji Lal Sharma, Caste Brahmin, aged 24 years, occupation Compounder, resident of village Khaira District Meerut in U.P. was examined as Prosecution Witness 16.
All these approvers testified before the Commission for the prosecution and against their own countrymen who were fellow-revolutionaries and were accused of waging a war against the British rulers to free their country. Neither then nor now would these persons earn any sympathy from their countrymen. But one could not be oblivious of human nature. In judging their conduct, we have to place them in their circumstances of the time and then look at them to understand their behavior. No one can deny that each one of them had chosen, and voluntarily, to involve himself in the activities that were obviously extremely dangerous for their own and their families’ security. They were all young men of 21 to 24 years. The decision on their part to involve them in the revolutionary activities was a courageous act, which was solely motivated by nothing else but by a patriotic urge. How many of our own family members then had that courage, is a question that propels us to think beyond their supposed treachery to their mother land and make them legitimate object of our sympathy. They are reviled by time and they need rehabilitation by history.
Secondly, by going through the “Proceedings of the Delhi Conspiracy Commission” one is not left in any doubt that each of these approvers tried to mislead the Crown, to create the confusion of facts in the fond hope that this confusion would help the accused – their own revolutionary friends and well-wishers of the mother land – in getting an acquittal and, very importantly, to spread the revolutionary message through their statements, albeit confessional to the crime in nature, among the Indian youths. It was observed by the Commission again and again that the approvers concerned did not give prompt reply to the questions put to them; that they gave irrelevant details, that they reflected a lot before giving answers to simple questions and that a question had to be repeated several times to get straight answer. This was their device to help their once-friends and their country. And, the history is witness, their hope of providing some help to their once-revolutionary friends in the difficult situation of the moment proved correct; the Commission was not in the position on the testimony of the approvers to convict any of the accused. The State was ultimately forced to disband the Commission and launch separate prosecution against each of the accused and, of course, against all those persons whose revolutionary activities had come to the light during the Commission’s proceedings. One such case was that of Babu Ram Charan Singh. The approver Bal Kishan (a compounder by occupation) had deposed that he was staying with Babu Ram Charan and that he was coming after applying dressing to Babu Ram Charan Singh when he was arrested on the way. Bal Kishan was forced to lead the police to the house of Babu Ram Charan Singh and his house was searched. The occupant was not found at the house. The police later on arrested Babu Ram Charan Singh from his native village Barkali in district Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and it was found that his hand was injured in some bomb explosion and that Bal Kishan was applying dressing to this injury. Babu Ram Charan Singh was put to a trial in Delhi in 1932 on the sedition charges and this case came to be known as “the Delhi Bomb Case”. Other details about this case would follow in this article. This one case is an example of how separate trials were launched by the Crown against individual accused and how the once-revolutionaries-turned-approvers tried to mislead the Commission and helped disband it.
Thirdly, the approvers were human beings, as vulnerable to threats, torture, inducements, tricks and the effects of psychological weapons as any human being could be. The persons who were involved in the Delhi Conspiracy could be divided into three classes: the persons who made the extreme sacrifice by voluntarily courting death when it became necessary to do so; the persons who did not betray the cause of revolution and voluntarily suffered extreme pains for their beliefs and actions: and, the persons who were motivated by the revolutionary patriotism, took part in the revolutionary activities, suffered its concomitant hardships but at the time of crucial test showed the normal human weakness. The approvers belonged to the third class; we must admit they fought and we must agree they were weak.
This brings us to the question: what is the worth of their statements? How credible are they in their statements? When the statements of these different approvers are compared and collated with each other and examined critically, they throw new light on some old issues presumed to be long-settled, many mistakes of the historical record stand corrected, many new facts and secrets, and many new personalities and events, which have been consigned to the historical oblivion, come to light of the day. From the historical point of view, their statements, when critically examined from this angle, provide us invaluable information about the personalities involved and the insight and motives guiding the Indian revolutionary movement. The next section follows the revolutionary events connected with the Delhi Conspiracy Case.
The first duty of H.S.R.A. (Hindustan Socialist Republican Association) was to free India from the foreign yoke. The object of the Association was to be achieved by armed revolution. Mr. Kailaspati, who was to turn approver later on, was initiated into revolutionary activities of the party in 1923 when Sailendranath Chakravarti gave him to read “Bandi Jiwan” (a popular revolutionary book highlighting the plight of India under British rule). In March 1928 M.P. Avasthi told Kailaspati, who was employed with post office at Gorakhpur, that he ought to help the party by taking money from the post office. Avashti brought him a bicycle to enable him to get away with the money. But he did not get an opportunity to get away with the money from the post office at Gorakhpur. In the meantime he was transferred to a branch office of the post office at Barhelganj. There Surendranath Pandey brought him a letter from Bijoy Kumar Sinha, instructing him to take the money to Kanpur as quickly as possible. On 26 June 1928 at about 11 AM, Kailaspati took Rs. 3100/- or 3200/- from the Barhelganj post office, which was the total amount available then in the post office. Kailaspati went along with the money through Barhaj Bazar and reached Lar Road railway station at about 8 p.m. The train reached the station at 11 p.m. He left the bicycle at the station and got into the train and reached Benares. There he bought a ticket for Kanpur and traveled to that place arriving there in the evening. In Kanpur, he went to Haldhar Bajpai’s house and sent for Sinha, who was not at home. He gave Rs. 500/- to Haldhar and asked him to give it to his father. He then went to Surendranath Pandey’s house and gave him all the remaining money he had. He remained in his house for two days, where Sheo Verma and Bijoy Kumar Sinha used to meet him. Sheo verma was staying in the DAV College Hostel and after two days Kailaspati went to stay with him in his room. There he met Sukh Deo Raj, who was known as ‘villager’, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Dr. Gaya Prasad. He spent one day at the Hostel, Sukh Deo left for Lahore early next day and Sheo Verma went to Hardoi also in the morning. In the evening, Kailaspati also left Kanpur for Lahore.
At the beginning of August, 1928, Sukh Deo came to Kailaspati and told him that he was going to Delhi to attend the Central Committee meeting of the party. After two weeks, Sukh Deo and Sheo Verma came back and met him in the Edward Hostel. Sukh Deo told that he had attended the Central Committee meeting and that it had been decided that first of all the name of the Association (Hindustan Republican Association) should be changed to the “Hindustan Socialist Republican Association”, secondly, the organization should be on a provincial basis and thirdly, Provincial Organizers should be appointed for various provinces. In the meeting it was decided that Bijoy Kumar Sinha and Sheo Verma should be Provincial Organizers for the U.P., Bhagat Singh and Sukh Deo should be Provincial Organizers for the Punjab, Kundan Lal for Rajputana and Phanindar Nath Ghosh for Bihar and Orissa. Chandra Shekhar Azad was appointed the Commander-in-Chief for whole of India. In September, 1928, Sukh Deo, Phanindar Nath Ghosh, Sheo Verma and Kailaspati were staying in Edward Hostel. A few days later Phanindar Nath Ghosh and Sheo Verma left for Amritsar while instructing Kailaspati to Look after Pratap, who was ill and staying in a house in Gwalamandi in Lahore. Kailaspati shifted to that house to take care of ailing Pratap, whose real name was Mahabir Singh. Mahabir Singh was learning motor driving at the Bharat Motor Training College. After a week, Kailaspati went from Lahore to Amritsar on a bicycle, where Sheo Verma and Sukh Deo were staying in a house. At that time Sheo Verma was writing articles for the “Phansi” (gallows) number of the “Chand”, a monthly paper published from Allahabad.
In mid November 1929 Sukh Deo came to Kailaspati and told that the party had need of money and that a ‘money action’ was going to take place in Lahore and his presence would be required. After two weeks, in one evening Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukh Deo, Kundan Lal, Jai Gopal, Hans Raj Vohra, Raj Guru and Kailaspati met at Muzang House in Lahore. There Azad said that the next morning they were going to rob the Punjab National Bank. Then they cleaned their weapons, which were revolvers and pistols, which each of them were to carry. After cleaning the weapons, it was arranged what duties various individuals were to carry out at the ‘money action’. Azad was to lead the party when it went to rob the Bank; Sukh Deo was to go and seize the gun of the sentry standing at the door and afterwards with Hans Raj and Rajguru to keep guard outside. Bhagat Singh and Kailashpati were to control the telephone and prevent any one using them and, if necessary, to cut the wire. Jai Gopal and Kishori Lal were to take the money; after that, they were to return to the Muzang House in a car which Mahabir Singh was to drive. The following day, they were unable to go to rob the Bank for some reason. Two days later, all of them arrived at the Bank at about 3 p.m. according to the various duties which had been assigned to them, but Mahabir Singh and Bhagat Singh did not arrive with the car and so the plan failed.
About the beginning of August intimation came to the Party that the books ordered from Rama Krishna and Sons of Lahore were coming through Railways. All the letters and posts meant for the party were always routed in innocuously looking manner through individuals, who were either trusted members of the party or relatives of those members. In case of any revelation, either intentional or otherwise, it was a dangerous venture for all those involved. In this case the intimation was addressed to Nand Kishore Nigam’s brother-in-law. The Railway receipt was received by value payable post. Hardwari Lal took the parcel in which the books were sent. These books included “Young India” by Lal Lajpat Rai, “Selections from Lenin” in two volumes, “Soviet Russia”, “China in Revolt” and “Modern India” by Palme Dutt.
In the third week of February, when Chandra Sekhar Azad was in Delhi, he called for holding a party meeting in Cawnpore for discussing a very important matter. He himself reached Cawnpore and called other leaders to reach there. On this instruction Kailashpati reached Cawnpore and went to the house of Ram Singh from where he was taken by B.B. Tiwari to the house of Daya Shankar Shukla in Naryal Bazar. There a meeting was held which attended by B.B. Tiwari, Satgur Dayal Awasthi, Bhagwati Charan, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Kailaspati. There it was decided to rescue the accused in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. It was arranged that a gas was to be used which when released in the court would render everyone present there senseless and the accused would then be rescued and taken away in lorries. Arrangements were being made in the Punjab for the manufacture of this gas under the supervision of Yashpal. At that meeting it was also decided that Yashpal should be provincial organizer for the Punjab and that Bhagwati Charan should be the Secretary for the party throughout India. It was also decided that the representatives of Bengal and Maharashtra should be on the central committee of the party. with this object Satgur Dayal Awasthi was to go to Bengal and Vaishampayan to Maharashtra.
In March the news came from the Punjab that it was not possible to manufacture the gas. Azad, Bagwati Charan and Kailashpati met in Qudsia Gardens. They had then returned from Cawnpore. The scheme was that Kundan Lal, Kanwal Nath Tiwari, Bijay Kumar Sinha, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, B. K. Dutta, Ajay Kumar Gupta, and Sanyal were to be rescued from the British hands and set at liberty. It was also decided that Mahabir Singh, Sukh Dev and Desh Raj were to be killed because they had made statements which had been of great assistance to the police; as regards Shiv Verma, S. N. Pande and three others (which included Agya Ram), it was decided that they should be given another chance to prove their sincerity; Dr. Gaya Prashad’s case was to be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal as his case was doubtful and it was not certain whether he had made a statement or not. At this meeting in February, Bhagwati Charan had written out a draft giving these names for this treatment, which draft was in his handwriting and was also exhibited by the prosecution during trial as Ex. P./20.
When Kailashpati went to Cawnpore to attend the party meeting, B.B. Tiwari told him that Pratul Ganguli had sent a man to Cawnpore who was leader of the New Socialist Republic. This person had come in order to seek cooperation with the Hindustan Socialist Republic Association; that the party had told him that it would consider this matter after the rescue of prisoners at Lahore. After the news has been received from the Punjab that the gas could not be manufactured, Azad, Bhagwati Charan and Kailashpati met in the Qudsia Bagh and came to the decision that the rescue of the Lahore accused was to be effected by a desperate attack on the court. This was about the end of February or the beginning of March.
Madan Gopal was called from Ajmere to Delhi so that Bhagwati Charan could be introduced to him as Bhagwati Charan was to go to Ajmere. Madan Gopal came to Delhi and stayed for 2 or 3 days, when was introduced to Bhagwati Charan. Madan Gopal then left for Ajmere with certain revolutionary books and an air pistol for target practice. In the second week of March, Azad, Bimal Pershad Jain, Bhawani Singh, Bhawani Sahai, and Kailashpati went to Nalgarha, a place near Delhi, for practice in arms. They stayed there with Ram Chandra Sharma and practiced with rifle and pistol. Ram Chandra Sharma had two or three guns and a rifle, which he had bought in January. There was also a pistol which Azad always kept with him. When they were going to Nalgarha, Bimal Pershad Jain bought from Elahi Bakhsh on Ram Chandra Sharma’s license some .300 bore Savage rifle cartridges, some .32 bore pistol cartridges and some .12 bore gun cartridges. After staying there at Nalgarha for two or three days, they returned back to Delhi.
In May, the party at Delhi received news from the Punjab that owing to the lack of funds it had not been possible to carry out the rescue plan and that money ought to be collected quickly for this purpose. In this connection, Azad, Bhagwati Charan and Kailashpati met in Qudsia Bagh to discuss what could be done under the circumstances. They decided that if they could rob the money amounting to Rs. 90,000/- which went to the Railway Clearing Accounts Office on the first of each month for wages, it would be possible to carry out the rescue plan and many other party activities. It was decided that when the money was brought from the Bank in a lorry to the door of the office, some members of the party in another car should attack it and rob the money. It was arranged that when the money was thus brought, Vaishampayan should get down at Kashmere Gate with the greater part of it and take it to the house of a friend of Bhagwati Charan where he used to stay. The car was then to go Qudsia Bagh from where Kailashpati was to take away the rest of the money on a bicycle to the house of Hardwari Lal at Ajmere Gate. The car then was to go to the new Hindu Hostel.
But in the meantime, a sum of Rs. 3000/- was given by Durga Devi, the wife of Bhawati Charan Vohra for the purpose of carrying out the rescue plan and so, as there was no urgent need for money, the plan of robbing the Railway Clearing Accounts Office was given up. About the beginning of May, certain blank forms were brought from Cawnpore, which were to be typed and distributed to the public after the rescue of the prisoners at Lahore. At that time, certain leaders from Chittagong had come to Cawnpore and wanted to see Azad. This news was given to Azad, who was in Delhi at that time, and he came down to Cawnpore and met them, though the police at that time was making frantic searches in Cawnpore about revolutionary activities going on there.
In the second week of May, Bhagwati Charan went from Delhi to Lahore in connection with the rescue of the Lahore accused. It was arranged that after the rescue, the freed accused were to be sent to different places for safety. For this purpose persons were sent to different places to arrange for their safe stay. Kailashpati was sent to Jaipur to arrange for some of them. This visit was before Bhagwati Charan went to Lahore in connection with the rescue plan. After Bhagwati Charan had gone to Lahore, Azad took one day Kailashpati to Marwari dharamshala behind the Railway Clearing Accounts Office and told him to go up and bring down to him a person named Ramesh who was sitting there. Kailashpati went up and brought Ramesh down to meet Azad, both of whom then had a conversation for some time. Thereafter, Azad told Kailashpati that Ramesh was going to bring him Rs. 2,500/- and that he (Kailashpati) was to send this money to Lahore for rescue plan. Ramesh took noted Kailashpati’s address and Kailashpati took the address of Ramesh, which was that of Matsaddi Lal, Malakpur in district Muzaffarnagar. Kailashpati gave the address that of Krishna Kumar, 1st year student, St. Stephen’s College, Kashmere Gate.
Azad, along with Madan Gopal, went to Lahore in the third week of May to direct the rescue plan.It all happened this way. Kailashpati had sent a letter to Madan Gopal to come to Delhi (in connection with the plan to rescue Bhagat Singh and Dutt etc.), however without telling him the purpose of his coming there. He came to Delhi in May, 1930 and was put up by Kailashpati to live in Bimal Pershad’s house where he stayed for two days. One of these two days, Madan Gopal was introduced by Kailashpati to Bara Bhai (the party name of Chandra Shekhar Azad; most of the names of persons used in the party were one of the several aliases of the persons concerned) and told him that he (Bara Bhai) was sending him to Lahore with him (Kailashpati) for about 10 or 12 days. Arriving at Lahore, Madan Gopal stayed at house No. 9 on Bhawalpur Road. In this house were staying Bara Bhai, Bhagwati Charan, Yashpal and another person called Suraj. During his stay there, Shiv, Baj, Asaf, Didi and Bhabi also visited this house. While in Lahore, each one of these persons was given a different work to do. Pran (the party name of Yashpal) was to live in the house as a Sahib under the name of M. G. Shukla. Bara Bhai used to come to the house on the pretext of buying things for the Public Sanitary Works. The duty of Madan Gopal was that of a bearer, that of Suraj of a Khansama (a cook). The object of their living there was to try to rescue Bhagat Singh and Dutt. On 1 June Bara Bhai, Madan Gopal, Pran, Sardarji and Shiv went in a car to Borstal Jail. They all took pistols with them. The day before these pistols were cleaned in that house by Bara Bhai and Madan Gopal, who was taught by Bara Bhai how to do it. Beside these weapons, some bomb shells were also filled by Bara Bhai, Pran and Madan Gopal, which were taken for use along with the pistols.
When they got to the jail the car was placed close up against the gate. The plan was that while Bhagat Singh was to be led by police out of the jail gate towards the stationed police lorry, the captive was to rush towards the rescue-team, and the team, while taking control of the prisoner, was to deal with the emerging situation by killing any or all policemen who might obstruct the captive’s escape to freedom or pursue him to capture. Bhagat Singh had been informed in advance of this rescue plan and the rescue team was legitimately under the impression that Bhagat Singh would rush towards them. However, Bhagat Singh showed by his behavior as if he was under the impression that they would rush towards him. In this confusing situation, both remained where they were and Bhagat Singh was taken away by the police in a lorry.
This episode also brings to the fore certain hitherto unknown traits of the personality of this great martyr of India. There is no doubt that Bhagat Singh was informed of the minute details of the rescue plan and there was no scope of any confusion on those details; and still, he did not act as expected. Neither did he fear of death in the attempt. What persuaded him to behave as he did?
The only explanation of this bizarre demeanor on the part of Bhagat Singh is that he was not willing in his heart of hearts to be rescued and was determined to die a martyr’s death in the cause of his motherland. Bara Bhai after observing this situation said that it was not possible to carry out the plan that day.
On that day Suraj was left in the house and when the rescue-party got back Didi and Bhabi were also present there in the house. In the ensuing night the bomb-shells blew up of their own accord and the entire team living there left the house quickly in the next morning. The members of the team scattered to different places. Madan Gopal went to University ground and from there Pran took him to a certain person and from there he went to Palampur and from there he went to Ajmere.
In the beginning of June, Khiali Ram Gupta had a meeting with Kailashpati in Qudsia Bagh along with a person who had come from the Punjab. His name was Asaf (and the real name was Sampuran Singh Tandan) and was a member of the party. Asaf told that Bhagwati Charan had been killed in Lahore through the explosion of a bomb which he was testing and Sukh Deo Raj, who was with him, was badly wounded in the foot and that Vaishampayan had been burnt on the shin; that Sukh Deo Raj had brought the news of this accident to the Bhawalpur House where the party was staying with a view to rescue the prisoners. He also said that the party had attempted the rescue but failed. Asaf said that he himself had been at the Bhawalpur House when the attempt had failed and that Azad had sent him to get money in order that another attempt might be made.
Sometime, thereafter, Azad came back from Lahore to Delhi and told the party that there had been an attempt to effect the rescue; that the party had actually gone to the jail but was under the impression that Bhagat Singh would rush towards them while Bhagat Singh was under the impression that they would rush towards him so both remained where they were and Bhagat Singh was taken away by the police in a lorry. After that Azad said that after his experience in Lahore he would never take any part in any action unless there was sufficient money and material.
He also said that in order to raise funds the Railway Clearing Accounts Office should be raided on the first of the following month.
After that there was a meeting of the party at the Nand Kishore Nigam’s house and it was decided that a bomb factory should be opened in Delhi and it was to pass as soap factory. It was decided that Bimal Pershad Jain should be its manager. It was also decided that a shell factory should be opened in Cawnpore.
Vatsayana was known within the Party circle as ‘Scientist’. He was intimately connected to bomb-making secret activities of the Party. Qudsia Gardens was one of the frequent meeting places of revolutionaries in Delhi, whether these revolutionaries were on a short visit to Delhi for some important Party work or were based in Delhi for their revolutionary work. Babu Ram Gupta was having a shop in Billimaran and ostensibly was engaged in his innocent shop-keeping business but in his hearts of heart he was a committed revolutionary and utilized his shop-keeping activities as façade to buy bomb-making materials on regular basis. After mid-July one day Asaf met Kailaspati at Babu Ram Gupta’s shop and asked him to meet him in the Qudsia Gardens in the evening. When he went to the Qudsia Gardens, he found Dhanwantri, Asaf, Sukhdeo Raj and Bisheshar Nath were present there. On meeting, Dhanwantri asked him to accommodate Sukhdeo Raj and Bisheshar Nath somewhere. In compliance, Kailashpati took with him Sukhdeo Raj to stay with Bhawani Singh in Hamilton Road and Bisheshar Nath to stay with Bhawani Sahai in his house in Kanari Bazar. At that time Chandra Shekhar Azad was also staying in Delhi but after some time he left for Cawnpore for Party work. When he left, he took with him Rs. 7,500/-, which were to be given to B.B. Tiwari for some important assignment.
In keeping with its philosophy of liberating India through the peoples’ armed revolution, Hindustan Socialist Republican Association needed arms. At that time, only small arms like pistols, revolvers, guns etc. were the only means which could be procured by the Party. Even Chandra Shekhar Azad himself used to keep only Mouser pistol for his personal safety. Party was fully aware of the acute shortage of the quality arms to fight the enemy and highly valued the idea of making innovations in this crucial field. Making effective use of bombs and lethal gases by the revolutionaries as weapons in this fight was one such innovative idea. They referred to chemistry books to learn about chemical reactions so that they could make bombs; they made experiments to verify the efficacy of their products; and, they stock piled and used those products in their missions, albeit not with great success. These innovative weapons were sought to be used by Bhagat Singh and his co-revolutionaries for ‘making an announcement through explosion so that the deaf ears of the British could hear’ the message. One should be cognizant of the objective fact that almost all of these Indian revolutionaries were very young – between 20 and 24 years of age – and therefore immature in practical things, and not highly educated either. But they were highly fired by the zeal and patriotism. At this distance of time from then and with all the required neutrality available to us today, a fair credit should be given to these revolutionaries that they conducted themselves in their chosen activities with full maturity (much beyond their age), ingenuity and competence.
It was decided that in addition to the procurement of pistols, revolvers, guns and other weapons of government armory, the Party would make bombs and lethal gases. Towards this end, certain quantity of acids was bought and kept with Kailashpati. At the end of July and the beginning of August, these acids were furnished by Kailashpati from his house and taken to the Bomb Factory. This factory was named “The Himalyan Toilets”. For the venture a signboard with the name “The Himalyan Toilets” was made, which was done by “Azad Painting Works”, and put up at the place. It was also considered necessary that correspondence of revolutionaries should reach this place and for this purpose an application was sent to the Postmaster of Delhi asking him to send any correspondence for the Himalyan Toilets to this place. Then, through Babu Ram Gupta the required materials were purchased, which were: 80 or 90 pounds of sulphuric acid, about 100 pounds of nitric acid, 9 or 10 pairs of rubber gloves, 1 pound of chloroform, 1 pound of potassium ‘cyanide’ and a good number of other smaller things.
On the first occasion, the acids were brought to the factory on ‘thela’ by Kailaspati and the second time he took with him Girwar Singh to bring the material, which was brought on a ‘tonga’. While these materials were being brought by Girwar Singh, before reaching the factory Kailaspati got down from the ‘tongs’. This was done to avoid suspicion by strangers or police informers. After that mostly Girwar Singh alone brought these materials, which was sometime on ‘thela’ and sometime on ‘tonga’. For these materials Babu Ram Gupta was paid Rs. 600/-. Two electric fans were also required for use in the factory and the same were hired by Bimal Prashad Jain. For the manufacture of picric acid, carbolic acid was also necessary. Some of this material was kept in the house of Kailaspati, which was brought from there to the factory.
Picric acid was made in the factory in a room near the kitchen. While making picric acid, the electric fans were used to blow the fumes outside. While the picric acid was washed with water, it turned yellow and to avoid detection by outsiders another color used to be put in this water before letting it run outside.
Usually, Mst. Prakasho used to wash the picric acid. After making picric acid for three or four days, the drain of the factory got chocked and the water began collecting in the lane. Then, the making of picric acid was stopped and in its place the making of soap, oil and cream was started. The soap made by the revolutionaries was to be known as “Vasant Prag”. Several other kinds of oils meant for hair, which were known by different names, were also made there.
To get the drain cleared, a letter (postcard) was written in the name of Bimal Prashad Jain to the Health Officer of the Municipality to have the drain opened and cleaned. ‘Scientist’ attempted to make soap but was not successful. However, he was able to make some oil and cream, which was to be sold in the bazaar. For advertising and selling these things some labels and posters were prepared and got printed at the Delhi Printing Works by Bimal Prashad Jain and Yashpal.
By the third week of July it became apparent that the process of making picric acid was very slow and that if some apparatus were obtained, it could be made quicker in large quantity. The needed apparatus for the quicker process were flasks, glass tubes, rubber-tubing, measuring glasses, rubber corks, and stands and separating funnels. Therefore, these apparatus were ordered through Khayali Ram Gupta and obtained from the Imperial Scientific and Educational Stores, and were taken to the factory. The revolutionaries also required nitric acid, sulphuric acid and ice for making gun cotton, which was a necessary element needed to remotely ignite a bomb through wire. (This method was used by the revolutionaries for blowing the Vice-regal train sometime thereafter). One day Girwar Singh went to Fatehpuri and bought 15 seers of ice from the Suraj Restaurant for this purpose. Thereafter, he regularly went there to get ice. Some chemicals, oil and fat were also needed for making soap. While the needed oil and chemicals were bought by Bimal Prashad Jain, the fat was procured by Kailaspati through Bhagirat Lal, who bought it from some butcher at Kashmir Gate. Though the young revolutionaries were fired by their zeal in pursuit of the goal of achieving freedom for their motherland by any means, still they were not oblivious to the religious considerations. And, this act of buying fat from a butcher by Bhagirat Lal was condemned by ‘scientist’. The fat bought from the butcher was not used and instead some fat was bought from Babu Ram Gupta’s shop, which was manufactured by Merck and Company and was called ‘adapselane’. Bhagirath Lal himself was a Brahmin by caste, who was a native of village Barkali Tehsil Sardhana in District Meerut in U.P. and a revolutionary mentor of Babu Ram Charan Singh of the same village.
At the factory when they were making picric acid, the fumes got into their lungs and gave them chocking sensation. It was necessary to overcome this problem and for this purpose from Babu Lal Gupta smelling salts were procured. Nitro glycerine was also produced in the factory and, at first, it was kept in three bottles in the same room in which picric acid was being made. On one occasion there was an accidental mild explosion in the factory. It took place when some nitro glycerine was being changed from one bottle to another, which bottle had earlier been used to contain sulphuric acid and which possibly still had some residue of that chemical. As a result of this mixing of the two chemicals, there was a chemical reaction in the bottle. As a result, there was a mild explosion in the room, the cork flew out of the bottle and all the nitro glycerine was thrown up to the ceiling.
In August when Yashpal was going to Lahore, he took away with him the other two bottles of nitroglycerine, which were again brought by Dhanwantri back from Lahore to Delhi. At the end of July, the Party came to the conclusion that, as the factory building was a very big one and the male members working there were numerous, it may attract curious attention of unwanted persons, it was necessary to introduce another female inmate (beside Mst. Prakasho who was living there) in the factory to avoid detection. Accordingly, Bimal Prashad Jain brought his wife to the factory. After staying for 8 or 10 days, his wife went away as she fell ill.
Before the drain was choked off, during the three or four days of working, some picric acid and about a quarter of a pound of guncotton was manufactured by these people.
Revolutionaries’ this manufacturing facility was wired for the supply of electricity but the supply of current was cut off. It was necessary to get the electric supply restored and so Bimal Prashad Jain arranged with the Municipality to have it turned on.
The drain was cleared and in the first week of August, the process of manufacturing picric acid etc. again commenced. At this time, as before, in the factory Scientist, Yaspal, Girwar Singh, Bimal Prashad Jain, Mst. Prakasho and Kailaspati were present. One day, Sukh Deo Raj, Asaf, Danwantri, Yashpal and Kailaspati met in the Qudsia Gardens, when Asaf and Sukh Deo Raj expressed their desire to learn how to make picric acid. However, as Yaspal and Sukh Deo Raj were on bad terms (and Yaspal was engaged in the work at the factory), the idea of making them learn the process was put off by those present in the meeting. In the factory nitro-glycerine and picro-chlorine gas was also made. While the gas was made by Scientist and Yashpal alone, the other thing was made by the participation of all those present at the factory.
The people working at the factory also intended to make hydro-cynic acid. For this purpose, 1 pound of potassium cyanide was bought from Babu Ram Gupta but Scientist said it would be no good as its intensity was only 30 per cent. In view of this situation, Bimal Prashad Jain again brought another pound of potassium cyanide, the intensity of which was 98 to 100 per cent.
The revolutionaries working there very well knew that hydro-cynic acid was a very poisonous gas and unless an antidote was available, the effect of this gas would be felt by the man who was making it. And, since these people could not get any antidote to hydro-cynic acid, and did not know of any, they were unable to make the intended chemical. The picro-chlorine gas was made with the object of using it when a raid was made on a place in order to render its inhabitants senseless. Sometimes, it was necessary to even kill persons and Hydro—cynic acid was to be used for the purpose of killing the enemy outright. Bimal Prashad Jain and Yashpal brought two hares to test the efficacy of the manufactured picro-chlorine gas and were shut up in a room in which some picro-chlorine gas was liberated. The hares became senseless. The potassium cyanide was also tested on two rats, which were injected with some potassium cyanide with a syringe. The rats died.
Kailashpati returned to Delhi from Gwalior and went to B.P.Jain to discuss party affairs with him. At that time, he lived sometimes with Bhagirath Lal and sometimes with B.P.Jain. Part of the time he also lived with Bhawani Singh, who was living over Chiranji Lal’s house in Sirki Bazaar. This went on till October. Bhagirath was living in the Lachhman Das Dharamshala at Nigambodh Ghat on Jamuna bank and was frequented by Ram Charan Singh, who belonged to his native village Barkali and lived in Sirki Bazar.
When the colleges opened again in October, Kashi Ram returned from Lahore to Delhi and lived in Lachhman Das Dharamshala at Jamuna Ghat. N.K. Nigam had become a professor at the Hindu College by then and was living in the New Hindu Hostel, of which he was the Superintendent. After two days of his return from Gwalior, Kailashpati read in newspapers that Bhagwan Das and Sada Shiv Rao had been arrested in Bhusawal.
After a week of this, he showed a bombshell to B.P. Jain and suggested to him that it would be a good thing if something like it could be made. Jain said he would try. After a week a mistri came from Baghpat who was known to him. He showed him the shell and asked him whether a thing of that kind could be made and the mistri said that he had a friend who lived at Phatak Habash Khan and he would try to get some made by him. Jain also made enquiries about this work from a mistri who was working in the same firm in which he (Jain) was working. It was some Electric firm near the Chartered Bank in Chandani Chowk.
But the attempt to make the bombshells was given up by them because the mistri of the Electric Company became inquisitive and suspicious as to what the things were for. At that time, in October - December 1929, the following members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association were actively engaged in revolutionary activities in Delhi: Chandra Sekhar Azad; N.K. Nigam; B.P. Jain; B. B. Tiwari; Kailashpati; Yashpal; Bhawani Sahai; Bhawani Singh; Bhagirath; Ram Charan Singh; Kashi Ram; Bhagwati Charan.
At the end of October 1929, Bhagwati Charan was introduced by Kashi Ram to Kailashpati in Qudsia Gardens. At that time Bhagwati Charan was an absconder in the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Bhagwati Charan expressed a desire to meet Chandra Shekhar Azad and asked the two what the party was doing in this part of the country. He was told that for lack of funds, the party was not able to do anything. Kailashpati said that he would endeavor to affect a meeting between him and Azad.
About that time, which was the beginning of November, Vaishampayan came from Cawnpore on his way to Lahore and informed that he had come from Azad; so it was concluded by members in Delhi that Azad was in Cawnpore. Vaishampayan also gave an address in Cawnpore to Kailashpati through which he should be able to get in touch with Azad. This address in Cawnpore was of Ram Singh who lived near a Church in Mulganj and in case the house of Ram Singh could not be located, then to get in touch with Sheo Ram Singh, who was the brother of Ram Singh and studying in seventh Class in Marwari High School. Vaishampayan was to return from Lahore in two or three days and when he did not return so, Kailashpati sent Bhawani Singh to Cawnpore to meet Azad and to tell him that he would bring Bhagwati Charan and Yashpal to Cawnpore.
After a day Bhawani Singh came back from Cawnpore and informed that Azad wanted to see Kailashpati before he could bring Bhagwati Charan and Yashpal to see him. Kailashpati and Bhawani Singh went to Cawnpore and through Ram Singh met Azad. Azad said that he had sent for him because a party meeting was to be held in Cawnpore and he was to attend the same. In the evening, a meeting of Azad, B. B. Tiwari, Satgur Dayal Awasthi and Kailashpati was held at the gymnasium opposite the District Congress Office.
At the meeting it was decided that B. B. Tiwari should be the provincial organizer for the U.P. and that Satgur Dayal Awasthi should help him and as Satgur Dayal Awasthi was connected with the Howrah Group in Bengal, he should keep this group in touch with B. B. Tiwari. Kailashpati was to be the provincial organizer for Delhi and Rajputana. Azad was to remain the Commander-in-Chief as before.
It was also decided that as the party had almost been shattered as a result of the Lahore Conspiracy Case more funds should be collected for the organization, which was to be done by Money-Actions, the places for which in the U.P. were to be selected by B. B. Tiwari and in Delhi by Kailashpati. Azad was told that he should see Bhagwati Charan, on which he said that he would come and meet him in Delhi.
After Azad had gone away from Delhi in the middle of November, 1929, Harendra Nath Majumdar came from Bengal to organize the party among Bengali students in Delhi. He was a friend of Gopi Nath Mitra who was a student at the Hindu College with Kashi Ram. Gopi Nath Mitra told Harendra Nath Majumdar that Kashi Ram was a member of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and thereupon Harendra Nath wanted to meet him. Harendra Nath told Kashi Ram that he had come for organizing of the party and he wanted to meet some leader of the party.
Accordingly, Kashi Ram arranged a meeting between Kailashpati and Harendra Nath Mujumdar in his room in Lachhman Das Dharamshala at Nigambodh Ghat on the bank of Jamuna. Harendra Nath suggested that the various provincial organizations should for facility of carrying out their work co-operate with each other. On this Harendra Nath was asked who was a responsible person with whom this could be arranged and he replied that Pratul Ganguli, who was a leader of the party, should meet him. He said that Ganguli was going to the Congress at Lahore and that he (Kailashpati) should be able to meet him there.
After meeting two or three times, Harendra Nath in the middle of December gave him a letter of introduction to Ganguli. Later on, Bir Bahadur Tiwari met Pratul Ganguli at the Congress at Lahore and it was agreed between the two leaders that provincial organizers should co-operate with each other. At the end of February or the beginning of March, a meeting of the party took place in Cawnpore and it was informed by B. B. Tiwari that Pratul Ganguli had sent a man who was leader of the New Socialist Republic and had met him (Tiwari). He had come in order to seek co-operation with the Hindustan Republican Association; however, he was told by Tiwari that they would consider the matter after the rescue of prisoners at Lahore.
After the news had been received from the Punjab that the gas could not be manufactured, Azad, Bhagwati Charan and Kailashpati met in the Qudsia Bagh and came to the conclusion that the rescue of Bhagat Singh and other prisoners was to be effected by making a desperate attack on the court in Lahore.
About a week later, Azad and Vaishampayan came to B. P. Jain’s house in Delhi and Azad was taken by Kailashpati to Naya Bazar house and introduced to Bhagwati Charan. Two or three days after this meeting, Kailashpati met Yashpal and Bhagwati Charan together. Yashpal had his hands tied up and on inquiry told that he had fallen from a motor cycle.
In the Naya Bazar house, one day in the presence of Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagwati Charan, Kailashpati suggested that attacks should be made on K. B. M. Abdul Aziz, Mr. Horton and Khairat Nabi to kill them; on this Bhagwati Charan said that we should not waste our energies on small people and that with the same amount of energy we could blow up the Viceregal Train.
After two or three days thereafter, Bhagwati Charan took Kailashpati to the Naya Bazar house where he and Yashpal were living together. They were engaged at the time with experimenting with electric batteries. They were experimenting about high tension and low tension electric current with copper and zinc batteries. They had a battery of two cells and wires from them were taken through a holder to which was fixed a small bulb. The glass of the bulb was broken and when the current reached the bulb, gun cotton placed there could be very easily exploded by it. Bhagwati Charan told Kailashpati that they were carrying on those experiments with a view to blowing up the Viceregal Train.
In Naya Bazar, Bhagwati Charan had given his name as Harish and Yashpal had given his name as Jagdish. They were introduced at New Hindu Hostel to Nand Kishore Nigam by Kailashpati so that in case of the need they could contact him through Nigam.
Early in December, Bhagwati Charan and Yashpal both went to Cawnpore to meet Azad to discuss the project of blowing up the Viceregal Train. They came back to Delhi in two or three days and informed other important party members in Delhi that it was decided in Cawnpore with Azad that the Viceroy’s train should be blown up when he was returning to Delhi on the 23rd of December. Bhagwati Charan said that all active party members should leave Delhi before that day because immediately after the blowing up of the train there would be a great police activity in Delhi and it would be unsafe to remain there.
But to enable party members to move out of Delhi and remain hidden in safe places required money, of which availability with the party was always short. To get the required money, Bimal Pershad Jain was sent to Ajmer to meet Arjun Lal Sethi who was a sympathizer of revolutionary movement and a friend of Jain. However, Jain came back from Ajmer with Keshab Chand Gupta with a message from Arjun Lal Sethi that he had no money available and that a “money action” was necessary to raise the required money and that if weapons were sent by the party for the purpose he would arrange one. On hearing this, a .32 bore revolver, which was brought from Gwalior by Kailashpati, was sent to Arjun Lal Sethi through Keshab Chand Gupta and it was arranged that some other party members would go later to Ajmer and join him there for the purpose of money action.
On the 22nd of December, Azad and Vaishampayan came from Cawnpore to Bimal Pershad’s house in Delhi. At that time, Kailashpati was living with Nigam at the New Hindu Hostel and they came to the house of Bimal Pershad Jain to meet Azad. On meeting there, Azad was taken to the Naya Bazar house where five persons including Bhagwati Charan, Yashpal, Lekh Ram (known as Thakur Sahib) and Ram Charan Singh were present. There it was arranged that there should be a meeting at the Qudsia Bagh at 11 A.M. that day.
As arranged, the meeting was held, which was attended by Azad, Bhagwati Charan, Yashpal, Kailashpati and B. B. Tiwari. Azad said that it had been arranged that the Viceregal train should be blown up the following day and that he himself had agreed to the plan but, since the Congress leaders such as Ganesh Shanker Vidyarthi were against it, it ought to be postponed. As per the arrangement, Bhagwati Charan and Yashpal were to carry out this plan.
As Azad was of the opinion to postpone the action, the question whether the train should be blown up or not was debated by all those who were attending the meeting for long. During the debate, Bhagwati Charan, Yashpal and B. B. Tiwari were in favor of the project.
Feeling disgusted of his opinion in favor of blowing up the train not being accepted and at the prospects of postponing the project, Yashpal left the meeting before it concluded. At last, at 5 P.M. the party arrived at a decision that the train should not be blown up.
After the meeting was over, as per the decision taken in the meeting, Bhagwati Charan went to his house and brought with him in an attaché case some typed notice forms in 30 or 40 in number, which Azad had previously given him to be distributed after the blowing up of the train and two seals, one of them representing a hand grasping a sword and the other the monogram “H.S.R.A.” for putting under the signature to be put on the notice forms.
The notice declared that the Viceroy was the greatest enemy of India and explained the necessity on the part of the party of blowing up his train; as the decision had been taken to postpone the project, these articles were now to be taken to the new Hindu Hostel and destroyed there. The forms were taken to the Nigam’s room in the new Hindu Hostel and burnt there but the seals were kept intact and later on were taken away by Bhagwati Charan. Yashpal had left the meeting before it was concluded, Bhagwati Charan and B. B. Tiwari had left together after the meeting was over and Azad and Kailashpati also went away and, after having their food in the evening, stayed in night along with another person Hem Raj in the house of Bhawani Sahai in Sirki Bazar.
Sirki Bazar was a place where many party activists were living. In the morning, Azad, Kailashpati and Bhawani Sahai went to the Qudsia Bagh and when, after some time Bhawani Sahai went away, they both went to the room of Bhawani Singh in the new Hindu Hostel and stayed there with Vaishampayan.
About 3 P. M. on 23 December, Bimal Pershad Jain came to Bhawani Singh’s room in the new Hindu Hostel with the news that the Viceroy’s train had been blown up. After the train outrage, there was a great police activity in Delhi and after remaining in the Hostel for two or three days, for safety reasons, Azad, Bimal Pershad Jain and Kailashpati started on foot for Nalgarha, which was a place about 14 or 15 miles from Delhi. Reaching near Nalgarha, they hired a bullock cart and stayed in Nalgarha at the agricultural farm of Brahmanand and Ram Chander Sharma as Sharma was the sympathizer of revolutionary movement and a friend of Jain.
On the 1st of January, Azad and Kailashpati came to Delhi again and moved in to the room of Nigam in the new Hindu Hostel. Yashpal came back on 2 January and met Azad and others in the Nigam’s room. Azad asked him bluntly why the train had been blown despite the meeting’s decision to the contrary. Yashpal replied that he had yielded to the insistence of his companions.
He informed that he and one companion had gone to the scene of the action on the morning of 23rd and that he himself had pressed the button that blew up the train. They had taken a motor cycle for use after pressing the button, which was a B.S.A. 1927 model; but they found that it would not work. This motor cycle had been bought second hand for the purpose of using in train blowing up by Yashpal and Bhagwati Charan in September 1929 from Walter Locke & Co. for Rs. 320, where Yashpal had described him as an assurance Agent to the Co. As the motor cycle would not work, they then pushed it together to the city and left it with some mistry (mechanic). At that time, Yashpal and his companion were wearing military uniform so that no one should suspect them. Yashpal then went to the railway station, bought two second class tickets for Ghaziabad and then he and his companion both left for Ghaziabad.
The whole project of blowing up of the Viceregal train was organized entirely by Yashpal and Bhagwati Charan and they had collected Rs. four thousand for the purpose. However, it was executed by Yashpal alone with the help of his companion. Azad was not at all satisfied with the explanation given by Yashpal for blowing up of the train despite the decision to the contrary.
Two days after Yashpal arrived, Bhagwati Charan returned and then Azad, Yashpal, Bhagwati Charan and Kailashpati met in the Qudsia Bagh. In the meeting it was decided that in reply to the Congress resolution in praise of the Viceroy and in support of non-violence, a leaflet should be written by Bhagwati Charan and distributed throughout India on the evening of “Independence Day”, that is, 25 January 1930.
Azad undertook to get the leaflet printed in Cawnpore. (This leaflet was later on printed in 500 copies in Cawnpore under the title “The philosophy of the Bomb” in English) It was also decided in the meeting that the motor cycle used in the train outrage and concealed in the Nigam’s room should be destroyed so that the police in any eventuality might not be able to trace it.
About a week later, Yashpal brought the motor cycle, which was used in the train outrage and was lying with the mechanic, to the new Hindu Hostel and concealed in the Nigam’s room. One evening, Bimal Pershad Jain, Bhawani Sahai, Bhawani Singh, Nand Kishore Nigam and Kailashpati met in Nigam’s room and decided that the engine and magneto of the motor cycle should be taken out and Jain should take them to Ram Chander Sharma who would keep them in case they might be useful in future; that Nigam should take the frame and mudguards to a friend of his who kept a cycle shop in the Fort and to be sold by him; and the rest of the fittings were to be thrown away. The next day, Bhawani Sahai, one Shamsul Haq or Fazal Haq (who had kept a cycle shop near the new Hindu Hostel) and Kailashpati dismantled the motor cycle and Jain took the engine and magneto in a sac to Ram Chander Sharma, who was then staying at “Asli Ghee Stores” in Khari Baoli and wheels, mudguards and frame were taken away by Nigam to his friend as arranged, which were later on thrown away in Jamuna.
The leaflets under the title “The Philosophy of the Bomb” were got printed at Cawnpore by Azad. About the third week of January, Kailashpati received a telegram from Cawnpore addressed to him at the Nigam’s address, which said “Send Singh immediately.” It was understood that Bhawani Singh was required to go to Cawnpore; instead of sending Bhawani Singh, Kailashpati himself went to Cawnpore and stayed at Ram Singh’s house where he met with Azad. Azad took him to a room in Civil Hospital where a compounder named Hamid was living and sent Hamid to fetch B. B. Tiwari.
On arrival, Tiwari sent Hamid to fetch some leaflets from somewhere, which was to be distributed on the “Independence Day”. Hamid brought a bundle of 500 leaflets, which were titled “The Philosophy of the Bomb”. These leaflets were brought to Delhi on 21st or 22 January 1930 to Delhi by Kailashpati, who arrived at 7 P.M. on that day and stayed for the night in the house of Bhawani Sahai in Sirki Bazar.
On 24 January 1930, Bhawani Singh, Nand Kishore Nigam and Kailashpati met in the Nigam’s room in the Hostel and decided to get these leaflets distributed as follows: it was arranged that Bhawani Singh and Bishambar Dayal should distribute them in all the colleges hostels at Kasmere Gate, except the new Hindu Hostel; Bhagirath Lal and Ram Charan Singh were to distribute them to in the hostels of the Arabic College, Commercial College and the Ramjas College Hostel at Daryaganj; they were also to hand the pamphlets to Congress workers such as Shanker Lal and Professor Indar; Bhawani Sahai was to distribute them to the press and news agencies.
The leaflets which could not be distributed to people in person were to be posted in typed written envelops to different individuals, which included: Sir James Crerar, Home Member, Assembly, Delhi; Barrister Asaf Ali; Kamla Parshad Jain, of Baraut. A bundle of leaflets was given to Bimal Persad Jain for distribution in the hostels in Meerut colleges and another bundle to Khiali Ram Gupta to be distributed at Ramjas College, Anand Parbat. Excepting those distributed by hand in Meerut and Delhi, there were some to be posted inside and outside of Delhi. Bhawani Sahai was instructed to give the various bundles to different people who were to distribute them. It was arranged that Bhagirath Lal was to make the distribution in the new Hindu Hostel, as this could not be done by Bhawani Sahai as he was living there and would have been recognized. This distribution was to take place on the evening of January 25 and it did take place that way.
On 8 August 1929 a Central Committee meeting of the party was held at the house of Satgur Dayal Avasthi in Cawnpore. In this meeting Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bir Bahadur Tiwari, Satgur Dayal, Dhanwantri and Kailashpati were present. Azad opened the meeting and said that both in the Viceregal train outrage in Delhi and in the Bhagat Singh rescue plan in Lahore Yashpal had wasted a great deal of the party’s money. He also said that Bhagwati Charan’s death in carrying out the bomb explosion experiment was due to Yashpal’s negligence. Azad also said that Yashpal had abducted Prakasho (the wife of late Bhagwati Charan), which was quite contrary to the party’s strict disciplinary rules of keeping one’s character clean in the matter of engaging with women.
Taking all these things into consideration, it was decided in the meeting that Yashpal should be killed. It was also decided in the meeting that a terroristic campaign against very high government officials, approvers and traitors should be vigorously begun throughout India. The decision to adopt this measure was taken to terrify the Government and lower is public image, to win the confidence and sympathy of general public and to teach a lesson to traitors of the motherland and deter other weaklings within the party’s rank from committing such anti-party and dangerous acts.
In this meeting the names of the Governor of the Punjab, the Governor of the United Provinces, approvers of the Lahore Conspiracy case, and old approvers such as Dina Nath and Benarsi Das were mentioned. By the ‘old approvers’ the party meant the people who had given the evidence against the revolutionaries as approvers for the Government’s prosecutors in the first Lahore Conspiracy case and the Kakori cases.
In this meeting it was also decided that the party should organize a public demonstration in the honor of martyr Bhagwati Charan in order to highlight his work and sacrifice and also to motivate and mobilize other young people for the revolutionary work. In this regard the first suggestion made by some of those present was that the demonstration should be made throughout India but Azad, realizing the lack of all-India base of the party then, said that it was not wise to stretch the demonstration to all India scale and that it ought to be limited to the Punjab and carried out by the Punjab party in the Punjab.
It was also decided in the meeting that the letter-forms for different provinces should be got printed, since the party before that had no letter-forms. Azad said that he would get these forms printed later on.
Regarding Yashpal, the meeting decided that Kailaspati should go back to Delhi and send Yashpal to Cawnpore where Azad and Bir Bahadur Tiwari would take him to a jungle and kill him there. At that time Yashpal was the provincial organizer of the party for the Punjab and, therefore, it was decided at that meeting that Dhanwantri would be appointed the provincial organizer for the Punjab in his place.
After two or three days Kailashpati left Cawnpore for Delhi and met Yashpal there. Kailashpati told Yashpal that he (Yashpal) had to attend the Central Committee meeting at Cawnpore and he himself (Kailashpati) would be going to Cawnpore by the following train. On being so informed, Yashpal left for Cawnpore but to the great surprise of Kailashpati he was back in Delhi the next day. On this, Kailashpati sent a telegram to Azad in Cawnpore, addressed to the Manager, Cawnpore Watch Company, Chowk, Cawnpore (which was the address being used by the party for communications), asking him to come to Delhi.
After sending the telegram Kailashpati got back to the party’s bomb factory and found that Yashpal, Prakasho and Scientist had already left the factory and had taken with them what picric acid, gun cotton and nitro-glycerine were in the factory and also a revolver. Next day, Azad and Vaishampayan arrived in Delhi to Bhawani Singh’s house. There, Vaishampayan was sent to call Dhanwantri and Azad was taken by Kailashpati to the factory.
Azad was very upset by what had happened, that is, the way Yashpal had left the factory. Azad and Kailashpati returned back to Bhawani Singh’s house and found that Dhanwantri had arrived. Sukh Dev Raj and Bhawani Singh were also present there. In this meeting of Azad, Dhanwantri, Sukh Dev Raj, Vishampayan, Kailashpati and Bhawani Singh it was decided that Chhail Bihari should be sent to the Railway Station in case Yashpal was leaving Delhi by some train and he was to stop him. Chhail Bihari went to the Station but did not find Yashpal there.
In the evening the same day, a meeting of Chandra Shekhar Azad, Girwar Singh, Bimal Prashad Jain, Dhanwantri, Kailashpati, Vaishampayan was held at the factory and it was decided that Vaishampayan and Dhanwantri should take Sukh Dev Raj with them to Lahore and there shoot Yashpal by any means if they got an opportunity. As decided, by the evening train Vaishampayan and Dhanwantri left with Sukh Dev Raj for Lahore.
Yashpal had already reached Lahore by then and had spread the word about the plan of his killing among his friends by taking the position that the decision of the Central Committee of the party had been arrived at in his absence – without hearing his side - which was contrary to justice. Consequently, many members of the party in the Punjab were opposed to the decision of the Central Committee. In these circumstances, the team assigned the task of killing him met Yashpal but did not execute the plan. It was about 16/17 August 1929.
After two or three days,Dhanwantri and Vaishampayan came back from Lahore to Delhi, bringing back with them the two bottles of nitro-glycerine and the revolver which Yashpal had taken away with him. Thus, Yashpal was saved of his life by his ingenuity and circumstances.
After the decision to abandon the raid on the Railway Accounts office on the first of July, the party was in acute need of funds to carry forward its plans of revolutionary organization and actions. To explore this possibility, Azad had sent Vaishampayan to B.B. Tiwari at Cawnpore. To make sure that an alternative option was available in case the Cawnpore project did not materialize, Azad also told Kailashpati to look out for another plan for a ‘money action’ in Delhi. After two or three days of consultation among Bhawani Singh, Bishamber Dayal and Kailashpati, it was suggested to Azad that the Gadodia Stores in Delhi should be raided to raise funds for the party.
At that time the party had no funds and it was needed badly. To meet this acute shortage of money, Azad sent Bimal Pershad Jain to Meerut and Bhawani Singh and Kashi Ram to Muzaffar Nagar to raise the money. Jain was sent to Meerut in particular because there were Jains in Meerut who sympathized with the revolutionary movement against the foreign rulers. Bimal Pershad Jain came back with the amount of Rs. 80/-. However, Kashi Ram and Bhawani Singh could not bring any money at all from Muzaffar Nagar.
Under these dismal conditions, Azad and Bishamber Dayal on July the 5th went to the Gadodia Stores to see whether it was possible to carry out the money-action there. The Gadodia Stores was chosen for money-action by the party because Bishamber Dayal was working there and he knew that a good amount of money was available there which could be used for a better cause of the country. Azad and Bishamber Dayal came back from the Gadodia Stores two or three hours later and Azad said that it should be raided. On the 5th itself it was decided that the raid at the Gadodia Stores should take place on the following day.
On July 6, Azad, Dhanwantri, Kashi Ram, Vidya Bhushan, Lekh Ram, Ram Charan Singh, Bhawani Singh, Kailashpati and Vaishampayan assembled in the room of Bhawani Singh at the New Hindu Hostel. At that time Azad was wearing a Dhoti, khaki coat, shorts and topee and had an automatic pistol with him. Vidya Bhushan was wearing payjama, coat, a turban and shoes, and was carrying a .25 bore pistol. Kashi Ram was wearing payjama, a coat and shoes and was carrying a green canvas handbag, and had a .32 bore revolver with him. Lekh Ram was wearing a khaki shirt, dhoti and shoes. Dhanwantri was wearing payjama, coat and fleet shoes. Ram Charan was wearing dhoti, coat and canvas shoes and was having Mouser pistol, which was prone to misfire. Kailashpati was wearing dhoti, coat and sandals. It was decided that all would assemble at the Queen’s Gardens. Dhanwantri and Kailashpati were to go first by bicycles and wait in the Gardens behind the Town Hall. Bishamber Dayal was also to reach there at the same time, which they did. The rest were to come in a car, which was being kept in the new Hindu Hostel.
After some time, as decided, Azad, Vidya Bhushan, Lekh Ram, Ram Charan Singh and Kashi Ram arrived there in the car, which was being driven by Lekh Ram. The car remained outside the Mahila Congress Office, which was also in the Queen’s Gardens, and Lekh Ram remained sitting in the car. All of the rest assembled in the Gardens. After half an hour, Bishamber Dayal went from the Gardens to the Gadodia Stores and came back to inform that the money was being counted there. This was about 9 o’clock.
It was then decided by those assembled that the party should go at once to the Gadodia Stores; that Dhanwantri should stand outside the door to prevent anyone going inside the Stores; while the rest should go and seize the money; that Kailashpati should at once go directly from the Queens Gardens on bicycle to the new Hindu Hostel to ensure that the gate of the Hostel was not closed, so that the car could enter immediately and without any obstruction or hindrance inside the Hostel. As decided, the party moved off to the Stores and Kailashpati left on his bicycle to the new Hindu Hostel and the car remained standing where it was, with Lekh Ram sitting at the driving wheel.
When the raiding party reached the Stores, the cashier seeing them was very much frightened. He was not in a position to resist or even raise alarm. He seemed a bit collaborative and gave them the key of the chest without any resistance or reluctance. The operation went smoothly and at ease as per the plan. It lasted for a very short period. After the operation was successfully over, the raiding party left the place; however, when they were leaving the Stores, a number of people got collected to stop them. It was a very precarious and dangerous situation for the revolutionaries. It was a matter of life or death and it became necessary for them to break the crowd and disperse them. At this critical moment Azad without losing a moment immediately took the lead to ensure the safe passage of his comrades. He fired his automatic pistol to scare away the mob. It was a signal for others in the party to follow the lead. Vidya Bhushan took out his pistol and fired it. Ram Charan Singh was having a Mouser pistol (the same pistol which was given to him by Azad and which malfunctioned and was prone to misfire) and when he took it out to fire, it went off on its own causing a bullet injury in his hand-palm. Despite injury, he held on with his comrades. On weapons constantly being fired by the revolutionaries, the assembled crowd lost nerves, got frightened and scattered to save themselves and the raiding party had no obstruction in their way to leave the place in safety. The whole operation was smooth and took not much time.
As soon as the party proceeded to the Gadodia Stores Kailashpati had also started on bicycle from there to the new Hindu Hostel and he reached there soon. After Kailashpati reached the Hostel, a few minutes later the raiding party in the car along with the seized money also arrived there. When the car came into the compound of the Hostel, the ‘mali’ called out “who is it?”, and Azad answered “koi nahin, hum log hain (No one, it is we)”. All came into the Bhawani Singh’s room.
They had three bundles of currency notes, three bags of rupees, a small bag of change and one small bag of base coins. When they counted the money, they found it was Rs. 13,250/- in all. The bag of the base coins was later on thrown in Jamuna River and all the bags in which money was brought were destroyed as they bore the seal of the firm. The injured was sent to the safety of his house in Sirkiwalan and his injury was attended to by application of medicines and dressings by Compounder Bal Kishon.
On the evening of 10th Azad, Yashpal, Dhanwantri and Kailashpati met in Edward Park to decide how they were to use the money that was taken from the Gadodia Stores. As decided, the money was distributed thus: Rs. 2500/- was given to be used for making explosives and running the factory in Delhi (Himalyan Toilets) and for buying a cyclostyle; Rs. 2000/- was to be sent to the Frontier which was to be used for carrying out publicity among the tribes there to prepare them to rise in revolt against the British government and for buying a cyclostyle; this money was given to Asaf who went to the Frontier along with a person who was in touch with Badshah Gul. Rs. 1000/- was given for use of the party work in the Punjab and for buying a cyclostyle for making pamphlets stating the aim, object and program of the party. Rs. 6000/- was given to B. B. Tiwari to buy arms and to open a factory in Cawnpore for manufacturing bomb-shells, for which the explosives were to be manufactured in the Bomb factory (Himalyan Toilets) in Delhi. Rs. 1500/- were given to B. B. Tiwari for organizing the party work in the United Provinces and for buying apparatus and a cyclostyle. Rs. 100/- were given to Khayali Ram Gupta for buying apparatus for the manufacture of picric acid etc. in Himalyan Toilets. A list of such apparatus and things to be purchased was prepared by Yashpal and given to Khayali Ram Gupta.
Bishamber Dayal had taken part in the Gadodia Stores action where he was known and now it had become necessary for the party to provide him shelter. It was decided that Bishamber Dayal would be sent to Ajmere for shelter along with Madan Gopal. Towards this step Madan Gopal was given Rs. 100/-, out of which he was to spend Rs. 10/- on the tickets for Bishamber Dayal and himself and Rs. 20/- was to be given to Bishamber Dayal for his expenses. Out of Rs. 100/- given to Madan Gopal, Rs. 60/- was returned by him and was sent to Bimal Persad Jain at the address of ‘Asli Desi Ghee Stores’. For the purpose of protecting Bishamber Dayal, Madan Gopal was also given a revolver, which was to be used in case the need arose for the same.
The sum total of money thus disbursed for the revolutionary work out of the amount of Rs. 13, 250/-, which in all was received in the Gadodia Stores money-action, comes to Rs. 13, 200/-. We find that there is a little difference of the amount of Rs. 50/- in this accounting. These accounts of amount of money spent by the party out of the amount received from the Gadodia Stores raid was provided to the Commission by Kailashpati and this discrepancy could be explained by his normal human weakness to remember the minute details of such accounts. Such were the Indian revolutionaries and such was their integrity in dealing with money-matters in their revolutionary work!
How India gradually compromised its freedom by her unwise steps and ultimately in 1857 lost it to the British Empire completely, is a fairly established history that should still teach a lesson or two to modern free India. But, the history of how that country was catapult by the great sacrifices of revolutionaries within a short period of about 40 years (1910 to 1947) from a slave population to a belligerent national mass and compelled the British very soon to resign to their unpleasant fate of disbanding their Indian Empire in the face of such belligerency, albeit by designing a graceful exit, is not so fairly known.
Saga of these revolutionary sacrifices and their decisive historical contribution in making the British making their mind to go, is a missing chapter in the official history of Indian freedom struggle. The powerful Indian revolutionary forces had, almost as a singular and decisive factor, molded the belligerent mood of Indian people that made the British gauge the seriousness of the situation and make-up their mind to leave.
Since in the face of these glowing sacrifices by revolutionaries and their mesmerizing effect on public psyche, the legitimacy of the claim of official freedom-fighters to take the rein of new India into their hands was seriously compromised, the new regime by design did not concede any historical space to these unsung heroes of the country. The successful attempt of official free India to consign to the dustbin of history the Delhi Conspiracy and Lahore Conspiracy cases and their accused is a glaring testimony of this unfortunate attitude.
This series of the life sketches of the accused of Delhi Conspiracy case is intended to correct this historical mistake of the official history of Indian freedom struggle. Unfortunately, most of the persons involved in the Delhi Conspiracy case have already died leaving no trace of the turbulent times and their travails due to this official apathy to recognize their contribution and preserve its memory. With the passage of time, even the people who knew about these efforts made in the difficult hours of India are now not left in good numbers. The persons who still survive and know about their activities may bring their memory to the public domain by contributing to these lines.
This series really needs the unbiased collaborative work from all those, Indians and non-Indians, who may happen to have in their possession the relevant and credible information about Indian revolutionaries. It is necessary that in providing information all the norms of Wikipedia are strictly observed by the contributors. The list of these revolutionaries may grow gradually with the new material coming to light.
Chandra Shekhar Azad was born on 23 July 1906 in Saryuparin Brahmins family of Pandit Sitaram Tiwari and Jagrani Devi in the Badarka[1] village of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh. He spent his childhood in the village Bhabhra when his father was serving in the erstwhile estate of Alirajpur.
The Bhil tribe in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh He learned archery from the tribal Bhils of erstwhile Jhabua district which helped him later on during the arms struggle against the Britishers. His mother Jagrani Devi wanted to make her son a great Sanskrit scholar and so she persuaded his father to send him to Kashi Vidyapeeth, Benaras for studying Sanskrit. In December 1921, when Mohandas K. Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement, Chandra Shekhar, then a 15 year old student, joined the movement. As a result, he was arrested and presented before a magistrate. When the magistrate asked his name, he immediately replied "Azad", meaning The Liberated. When he was asked to tell his father's name, he answered- "Swatantra" meaning Freedom. Then, the magistrate asked- "Where do you live?" He answered- "Jailkhana" meaning prison. He was sentenced to imprisonment for fifteen days with hard punishments. Over the punishment he again commented- "Sir! I replied so because I was sure you would send me to prison". This reply of Chandrashekhar elicited a round of laughter from the jury. The magistrate, who had totally lost his temper by now, asked the policemen to flog him fifteen times. With each stroke of the whip, he shouted loudly- "Bharat Mata Ki Jai !" (en.Hail Mother India!). From that day onward, Chandrashekhar Sitaram Tiwari assumed the title 'Azad' and came to be known as Chandrashekhar 'Azad'.
After suspension of the non-cooperation movement in 1922 by Gandhi, Azad became more aggressive on his stance. He committed himself to achieve complete independence by any means. Azad also believed that India's future lay in socialism. He met a young revolutionary Pranvesh Chatterji who introduced him to Ram Prasad Bismil who had formed the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a revolutionary organisation. Azad was impressed with the aim of HRA, i.e., an independent India with equal rights and opportunity to everyone without discrimination of caste, creed, religion or social status. On introduction, Bismil was impressed by Azad, when Azad reportedly put his hand over the lighing lamp and did not remove it till his skin burnt. He then became an active member of the HRA and started to collect funds for HRA. Most of the fund collection was through robberies of government property. He also wanted to build a new India based on socialist principles. Azad and his compatriots also planned and executed several acts of violence against the British. Most of his revolutionary activities were planned and executed from Shahjahanpur which was also the hometown of Ram Prasad. He was involved in the famous Kakori Train Robbery of 1925, in the attempt to blow up the Viceroy's train in 1926, and at last the shooting of J.P. Saunders at Lahore in 1928 to avenge the killing of Lala Lajpat Rai.
Appalled by the brutal violence, Azad felt that violence was acceptable in such a struggle, especially in view of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919, when a British Army unit killed hundreds of unarmed civilians and wounded thousands in Amritsar. The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre deeply influenced young Azad and his contemporaries.
Chandra Shekhar Azad made Jhansi his organisation's hub for a considerable duration. He chose the forest of Orchha situated at about fifteen kilometers from Jhansi for shooting practice. He was an expert marksman and used to train other members of his group in Orchha. Near the forest he built a hut aside a Hanuman Temple on the banks of the Satar River. He lived there under the alias of Pandit Harishankar Brahmachari for a long period, and started teaching kids of the nearby village Dhimarpura. In this way he managed to establish good rapport with the local residents. The village Dhimarpura was renamed as Azadpura by the Madhya Pradesh government. While living in Jhansi, he also learnt to drive a car at Bundelkhand Motor Garage in Sadar Bazar of the cantonment area. Sadashivrao Malkapurkar, Vishwanath Vaishampayan and Bhagwan Das Mahaur Mahaur came in close contact with him and became an integral part of his revolutionary group. The then congress leaders from Jhansi Pandit Raghunath Vinayak Dhulekar and Pandit Sitaram Bhaskar Bhagwat were also close to Azad. He also stayed for sometime in the house of Master Rudra Narayan Singh situated at Nai Basti and Pandit Sitaram Bhaskar Bhagwat's house in Nagra.
The HRA was formed by Ram Prasad Bismil, Yogesh Chandra Chatterji, Sachindra Nath Sanyal and Shachindra Nath Bakshi in 1924 just after two year of the Non co-operation movement. In the aftermath of the Kakori train robbery in 1925, the British clamped down on revolutionary activities. Prasad, Ashfaqulla Khan, Thakur Roshan Singh and Rajendra Nath Lahiri were sentenced to death for their participation. Chandra Shekhar Azad, Keshab Chakravarthy and Murari Sharma evaded capture. Chandra Shekhar Azad later reorganized the HRA with the help of revolutionaries like Sheo Verma and Mahaveer Singh. Azad was also a close associate of Bhagwati Charan Vohra who along with Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru, helped him to transform the HRA into the HSRA in 1928 so as to achieve their primary aim of an independent India based on socialist principles
Image of the .32 bore Colt pistol of Azad kept in Allahabad Museum In the last week of February 1931, Azad went to Sitapur Jail and met Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. He hoped that Vidyarthi would involve in the case of Bhagat Singh and others as he had previously done in the Kakori conspiracy case. Vidyarthi suggested him to go to Allahabad and meet Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. If he could be convinced, Nehru would be able to persuade Gandhi to talk to the Viceroy Lord Irwin and reach an agreement with the British Government in the forthcoming Gandhi-Irwin Pact.Chandra Shekhar Azad met Pandit Nehru on 6 February 1931. Pandit Nehru did not agree with him on some points, but was moved by Chandra Shekhar' s fervent patriotism and gave him 1200 rupees, which Chandra Shekhar needed for his work.
On February 27, Azad went to the Alfred Park on his bicycle. He sat under a tree of Jamun after propping his bicycle on the tree. He was discussing some confidential matters with a fellow party member, Sukhdev Raj when Deputy Superintendent of Police Bisheshwar Singh along with S.S.P. (C.I.D.) John Nott-Bower arrived there. Nott-Bower pointed his finger towards Azad to tell Bisheshwar Singh that this corpulent man was the person about whom he was informed just now by some reliable sources. Seeing a policeman pointing out his finger towards him, Azad immediately dragged out his Colt pistol from pocket and fired at Nott-Bower, hitting him in the right wrist. Seeing his senior officer soaked in blood, Bisheshwar Singh abused Azad. Azad immediately shot Bisheshwar Singh in his mouth, breaking his jaw. Within a few minutes, the police surrounded Alfred Park. During the initial encounter, Azad suffered a severe bullet wound in his right thigh, making it difficult for him to escape. But even then he made it possible for Sukhdev Raj to escape by providing him a cover fire. After Sukhdev Raj escaped, Azad managed to keep the police at bay for a long time.
Public and Police Officers watching dead body of Chandra Shekhar Azad, Alfred Park now renamed Chandrashekhar Azad Park, Allahabad, India Finally, with only one bullet left in his pistol and being completely surrounded and outnumbered, Chandra Shekhar Azad shot himself, keeping his pledge to never be captured alive. However, the British reported that he was killed in the police encounter by a troop led by John Reginald Hornby Nott-Bower who was awarded with the King's Police Medal (KPM Award) in 1949. According to the reliable sources, a C.I.D. Inspector Ram Vadan Singh reported to Chowdhury Vishal Singh, the Officer-In-Charge of Colonelganj Police Station Allahabad that his S.S.P. along with one Dy.S.P. had been seriously injured from an attack by some Indian revolutionary. The police officers who came after the death of Azad did not approach his dead body for about half an hour. Only after a gun filled with buckshot was fired into his thigh, and no movement was noticed in the body, did the police touch his dead body.[2] The file related to Azad is preserved in C.I.D. Headquarters, 1, Gokhale Marg, Lucknow. The Colt pistol of Chandra Shekhar Azad shown on the left hand side is displayed at the Azad Museum Allahabad. There were two wounds on the lower part of his right leg, one of which fractured the tibia; another bullet was extracted from the right thigh. The fatal wound appeared to be on the right side of the head and another in the chest. The body was sent to Rasulabad Ghat for cremation, which was performed under strict police guard. On February 28, 1931, from the post-mortem report, it was known that four bullets and a fragment of the fifth had been extracted from the body.
He once claimed that as his name was "Azad", he would never be taken alive by police. Allegedly, he was aware of the informer who betrayed him to the police.
(help needed) Shri Vimal Prasad Jain, a noted revolutionary and member of the Hindustan Republican Socialist Army(HRSA),was a close associate of Veergati Bhagat Singh Ji and Veergati Chandrashekhar Azad Ji. Vimalji was arrested by the British in the Delhi Conspiracy Case for blowing up the train of Lord Irwin. He and his wife Smt. Roopvati Jain along with Ageya ji, Durga Bhabhi and Bhagwati Charanji amongst others were running a bomb factory in the name of 'Himalayan Toilets' ( a smokescreen to hide the agenda of making bombs) at Qutub Road, Delhi. In this factory, they handled Picric Acid, nitroglycerine and fulminate of Mercury. . A biography of my grandfather, Shri Vimal Prasad Jain, was written by my grandmother, Smt. Roopvati Jain, and released by the then President of India—Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma. The book has included in its contents, the case presented by my grandfather named -- 'The Philosophy of the Bomb.'
My grandfather would have been hanged for being involved in revolutionary activities but for a Valmiki lady named Asharfi Devi who refused to give details of the typical bomb factory waste taken from the factory after she was told by some Krantikaris that if she told the truth many of the younsters working in the bomb factory would be convicted and eventually hanged. Former Delhi CM, Late and Hon. Sahib Singh Verma, when told of this story opened a school on Qutub Road in the name of 'Asharfi Devi'. Vimalji earned a term of 7 and half years RI only and he was not hanged.
Vimal ji had also arranged passes for Veergati Bhagat Singh ji when he had to enter the parliament for the symbolic bomb blast. Vimal ji gave the press release to Hindustan Times and ran away from the newspaper office before they could comprehend the contents of the press release.
My grandfather had held Yashpal, a communist, to be responsible for the 'murder' of Veergati Bhagwati Charan ji (by sabotaging a bomb that was being tested). Vimal ji was very upset and he wanted to shoot down Yashpal with his pistol but he was not given permission by Kailashpati (of the HRSA). Kailashpati later became an approver.
PROF NAND KISHORE NIGAM, revolutionary and freedom fighter, breathed his last on July 22, 1980, after a prolonged illness. Born in December 1906 in Delhi—H.No. 1258, Pahari Imli, Near Jama Masjid, Delhi-6. His father Shiv Sahey Nigam was the Station Master at Bhartana Railway Station, who expired in 1908 and his eldest uncle Shri Brij Lal Nigam brought him up as well as his sister Chandarani Nigam. He completed his school education from Amba Prasad A.S.V.J. Sanskrit School, Darya Ganj and completed his B.A. (Hons) and M.A. (Hons) in History from Hindu College (Delhi University), then at Kashmiri Gate, Delhi, in Ist Position. Getting the IST position, he was employed by the college as Professor and Hostel Incharge of the College. He participated in the agitation against the Simon Commission. Years later in 1929, as Incharge of the Hindu College Hostel, he met Chandrasekhar Azad, popularly known as Panditji. Soon his room became a meeting place for revolutionary freedom fighters like Azad, Bhagwaticharan Vohra, Bhawani Singh, Kashi Ram, Vimal Prasad Jain, Vishampayan and Dhanwantri. Since his school days, he was very inclined towards freedom struggle but the good counsels of advice by his school teachers Amba Prasad and Ajmal Khan stopped him to participate in the freedom movement, before the completion of his studies. But as soon as he complete his studies, he joined Pt. Chandrasekhar Azad group, who later handed over the command of bomb squad. When the college authorities came to know about the meetings of revolutionaries in the Nigam’s room, they asked Nigam either leave the college or leave the company of revolutionaries because as the British Government came to know about the meetings in the college campus the college aid could be stopped and Hindu College will be Blacklisted. He left the college not his childhood dream to free India. And started to live with married sister at Esplanade Road, now Amir Chand Dehlvi Marg alias Cycle Market, Chandni Chowk, Delhi. But with the passage of time, Panditji demanded him for Rs 500 for the party work and to meet that demand he had sold his share in the property at Pahari Imli to the other co-parcener Chandi Prasad( as according to the condition of the Registered Will of the property that no partner have the Right to sell his share to any third person to the family, season whatsoever). In September 1930, he formally inducted into the movement by Azad with Delhi as his area of activity. But Kailashpati’s arrest and disclosure of the names of his revolutionary associates forced Nand Kishore to go underground. He left Delhi and joined Azad in Kanpur. He was arrested from Gaya Prasad Library, Kanpur and was kept in solitary confinement and was tortured. In winter season, he was laid down totally naked on the ice bricks and was beaten with iron chains but he never uttered any names of his bomb squad and during such tortures, a wound on his head went with his death. That wound never healed up.
He was arrested a second in February 1933 in connection with the Delhi Conspiracy case and on February 16, 1933, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment under the Arms Act. In Gonda jail, he was kept in a dark room fro one year. When his condition became serious, British Government released him in 1934. In due course, he was cured and was employed with the Tatas. In 1941, he left the job and started his own business in Delhi. He was arrested, for the third time, on August 9, 1942, along with Farid Saheb. He was kept under detention for two years. He again fell ill and was released after his illness persisted for months. After Independence, he served as India’s First Commercial Secretary in Karachi for three years (1957–60) and later as Trade Commissioner and Consul-General of India in Kuwait. He has written two books on Azad, Balidaan in Hindi and the other Delhi in 1857 in English, the second one were presented to the first Prime Minister of India Pt Jawaharlal Nehru. He remained a bachelor all his life, because after Independence when the family elders pressurized him to marry but every request or pressure was turned down by saying jailon mein lohe ki chenon se pit pit kar sari haddiyan toot rahin hein aur itne bimariyan lag gaeen hein pata nahin kab maut aa jaye.
A good amount of information about the life and revolutionary struggle of Nand Kishore Nigam was made available by some R. B. L. Nigam at the following site but,unfortunately, now it is no more there. Let some body help retrieve this material.
Yashpal grew up at a time of ferment and agitation for Indian independence. In his school days he was drawn at first to Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, but later felt that such movements were unresponsive to the needs of the poor and that non-cooperation with the British was ineffective. He joined National College, Lahore, a hotbed of nationalist sentiment, which was founded by Lala Lajpat Rai, the venerable leader of pre-partition Punjab. There he met Bhagat Singh who was hanged for his role in the assassination of policeman J.P. Saunders in Lahore (1928), and for exploding a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi (1929). Yashpal wrote in his reminiscences, Sinhavalokan, “One day I and Bhagat Singh got a chance to practice rowing in the Ravi river. Just two of us, no one else was there. I don’t remember how the subject came up, but in that solitude I said to Bhagat Singh, trusting him implicitly: Let us pledge our lives to our country.
“Bhagat Singh’s face turned very serious, and extending his hand to me he said: I do pledge.” At first Yashpal took part in the activities of Naujawan Bharat Sabha organized by Bhagat Singh, but after the Lahore Bomb Factory was unearthed in 1929, he too went underground and never looked back. As an active member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA), he came into contact with another well-known revolutionary, Chandra Shekhar Azad, who shot himself (1931) in a shootout with police in Allahabad. After the death of Chandra Shekhar Azad, he was chosen as a chief of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA). During the next two years, Yashpal made explosives at several secret factories, blew up the train carrying Viceroy Lord Irwin in 1929, took part in an attempt to free Bhagat Singh from Borstal Jail in Lahore, shot and grievously wounded two police constables in Kanpur when they tried to block an attempt by his group to escape. He also met his future wife, 17-year old Prakashvati who had left home to join the revolutionary party.
Yashpal was arrested in Allahabad in 1932 when his bullets ran out after an armed encounter with the police. He was one of the main accused in the concluded Lahore and Delhi conspiracy cases, but after a lengthy trial the government decided not to reopen these cases in view of the expenses involved. Some other charges against him could not proven for the lack of witnesses. In the end, he was given a life sentence. In prison Yashpal taught himself enough French, Russian and Italian to read original works in those languages. He also wrote and re-wrote short stories that were later published as Pinjare ki Uran (Flights of a Caged Mind). In this life of discipline and contemplation came a surprise in the form of a petition by Prakashvati to the jail authorities that she wanted to marry Yashpal, the prisoner serving a life sentence.
Since the jail manual did not forbid a prisoner from getting married, the British superintendent gave his consent. The police did not want the notorious revolutionary to go to the civil court without handcuffs and leg irons, and Yashpal refused to get married tied up like a criminal. A compromised was reached when the Deputy Commissioner agreed to perform the marriage inside the prison. After the ceremony, Yashpal was returned to his cell to serve his life sentence, and Prakashvati went back to Karachi to finish her studies to become a dental surgeon which she had begun after her own arrest and subsequent release by the police.
Their’s might be the only marriage ever to take place inside a prison in India. When the news of the marriage leaked outside, the newspapers seized upon the novel idea, provoking the government to add a section to the Indian Jail Manual forbidding a sentence-serving prisoner to be married in the prison in future.
India moved toward self-government in 1938. As part of the election campaign, the Congress Party promised to release of all political prisoners. Workers of Gandhi’s movement were released immediately, but assurances were sought from the revolutionaries that they no longer believed in violence. Yashpal refused on the ground that it would appear that he had bargained with the government for his release. He was the last to be set free, on the condition that he would not be permitted to go back to Punjab. He then decided to make Lucknow, the capital of United Provinces (UP) where he was serving his sentence, his home.
Yashpal and Prakashvati, as he wrote in his reminiscences, were penniless. After a few months of hardship, Yashpal founded the Hindi monthly Vipalava (revolution) while Prakashvati worked as a dentist. Her dental practice was flourishing in those days of few women dentists, but she gave it up to help her husband. Soon they brought out the magazine’s Urdu edition, Baagi. The masthead of their publication said it all: “You may preach the message of peace and equality. Let revolution sing its fiery song.”
Viplava was a milestone in Hindi and Urdu political journalism. Besides being immensely popular, it was also a forum where staunch Gandhians and avowed believers in non-violence and satyagraha (civil disobedience) debated social and political issue with equally staunch Marxists and hardcore revolutionaries. When Yashpal was put in prison for seditious writing, Prakashvati filled in as editor.
In an attempt to muzzle the fiery enthusiasm of the couple, the government demanded huge security deposits from the magazine. The two closed down Viplava and Baagi, and began publishing Viplavi Tract. But police raids and constant harassment took its toll, and it all came to an end after five years of trend-setting journalism. Viplava reappeared briefly in 1948, but could not survive the censorship laws in a free India! Yashpal, his own freedom regained and India’s on the horizon, soon made his mark as a writer. Mahadevi Verma, the eminent Hindi poet, summed it up: “When other writers were praying to Saraswati, the muse of literature, for her blessing, Yashpal was making bombs in a dark, secret cellar. When he arrived on the literary scene much behind others, it was him that Saraswati gave her undivided attention.”
If the literature of social reform and social protest in Hindi found a worthy advocate in Yashpal, he wielded a sledgehammer when writing about the exploited and the economically deprived in his fiction, and in the editorials and columns he wrote for Viplava.
Yashpal set about immediately on one his lifelong missions: repudiation of what he considered to be backward and unrealistic in the Indian society. But unlike most people devoted to causes, he went about it with gentle humour and tongue-in-cheek wit. His criticism of ancient Hindu ideals as a basis for contemporary society can be seen in his story Dharmraksha (To Uphold Righteousness) where a man denying his normal instincts under the discipline of brahmacharya (celibacy), attempts to rape his 19-year old daughter. Such questioning of long-practiced religious rites and rituals, of the Hindu doctrine of karma and reincarnation as preached by the orthodox often earned him threats to his life.
Yashpal never hid his preference for Marxist ideals, and the inefficacy of the movement led by the Congress Party and Mahatma Gandhi. His Gandhiwad ki Shav-pariksha (Post-mortem on Gandhiism), written in 1941 when Gandhi was alive, continues to be among his best-selling works. Although some of his early works showed the Communist Party as the saviour of Indian people, he himself never joined the party; in fact, the Communists later turned against him for his criticism of comrades who sacrificed free will and independent judgment to the Party’s dictates. Another consistent feature of Yashpal’s writing is his compassion for women and his special concern for the inferior position of women in India. The women protagonists in his writings often break free, or try to, from the traditions of society that keep them in total dependence upon their family. Divya (1944), his novel set in the 1st century BC when there was a wide mingling of Indian and Hellenic cultures in northern India, is about Divya from an aristocratic Brahmin family who tries to find her identity in a male-dominated society. Assertions by Divya such as “the mistress of a noble family is not a free woman; she is not independent like a disreputable courtesan” outraged many of Yashpal’s contemporaries. Others tried to ignore it because they felt that a story about India’s so-called Golden Age could not be considered ‘literature’ if it expounded an unacceptable political ideology. Fortunately, a core of young critics and scholars of successive generations has continued to stand - and even swear - by Divya’s yearning for independence when she decides to be a prostitute, so as to be a free woman and have ownership rights over her body. The work showed Yashpal’s deep knowledge of Indian classics and his command of Sanskrit.
His novel Jhootha Sach (1958 & 1960), similar in scope and breadth to Tolstoy's War and Peace, and has been compared to the works of Balzac and Victor Hugo. Probably the only work of its kind in any language and often acclaimed as the definitive novel on India's partition, it chronicles the ups and downs in the lives of two families (a brother and sister, and his girlfriend/wife) in pre- and post-partition India. Critics praised the novel for its balanced depiction of both Hindus and Muslims, and readers loved its merciless portrayal of the Congress Party leaders on the make in British-free India.
That portrayal was so merciless that Yashpal was blatantly passed over for the Sahitya Akademi Award given by the government. The issue of Congress Party criticism, and of Jawaharlal Nehru, resurfaced a decade later when his name was on the national honours list. Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, reportedly read the ‘objectionable’ pages of Jhootha Sach and found nothing objectionable. Yashpal, the born anti-establishment rebel, was finally bestowed Padma Bhushan in 1970. The Sahitya Akademi tried to make amends by giving him the denied award in 1976 for his last novel Meri Teri Usaki Baat. It’s not known if he’d have accepted it; he was too unwell to say either yes or no.
Yashpal's more than fifty books of short stories, essays, novels, a play and his 3-vol. reminiscences had a profound influence on Hindi literature, and on social and political philosophy in India. Corinne Friend, translator of several works by him, said it all in her book Yashpal: Author and Patriot: “Yashpal, in his concern for the common man and commitment to social justice, his understanding of the quirks of human nature and ability to portray human beings with compassion and humour, and in his simple and powerful writing style, is heir to Prem Chand,” the greatest Hindi writer of pre-independence India.
Bhagirath Lal was born in a Brhamin family in village Barkali in district Meerut of Uttar Pradesh. During his revolutionary activities in Delhi, he lived in Lachhman Dass Dharamshala, located on the bank of river Yamuna, along with his younger brother Aman, who was then aged about 12 years.
Babu Ram Charan (alias Ram Charan Singh), the only son of Gajraj Singh (alias Umrao) and by caste a Jat, was born in village Barkali, Tehsil Sardhana, district Meerut in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in an agriculturist family having considerable Zamindari. While still a young boy studying in middle school, he got involved in the revolutionary activities of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. Around the year 1928, while studying at Sardhana, he came into contact with his fellow villager Bhagirath Lal, who was a revolutionary activist of HSRA. A Brahmin by caste, Bhagirath Lal was then studying in Delhi and staying along with his younger brother Aman – aged about 12 years – in Lachhman Das Dhramshala at Nigambodh Ghat on the bank of river Yamuna. Ram Charan Singh was supplied revolutionary literature by his mentor, which included “The Life of Jatindra Nath Das”, “Desh-Ki-Bat” (Let’s talk about the nation), “Nav Yuvakon se do baten” (A few words to youths), “Amar Puri: by Kishan Dutt Paliwal”, “Azadi ke Diwane”, “Mulki Maya”, “Bandi Jiwan” (Slave Life) etc. Greatly influenced by such literature and the stories of revolutionary heroes, and inspired by the revolutionary zeal of Bhagirath Lal, he left Sardhana for Delhi in 1928 to participate in the revolutionary activities. He was about 17 years old then and was a middle class student.
In Delhi he lived in a house in Sirkiwalan. To pass on in the prying eyes of the area residents as an innocent civilian engaged in legitimate occupation to earn his livelihood, he joined as a Store Keeper at the Brooke Bond Company. In reality, he was carrying out revolutionary activities like working in the bomb factory (Himalyan Toilets) that manufactured bomb-making materials like picric acid, sulfuric acid, poisonous gas and was distributing party pamphlets etc. Bhagirath Lal was his mentor and he was all along working with him in such activities. He also participated along with Chandra Shekhar Azad in money actions to raise funds for revolutionary activities, like opening bomb-shell factory, attempt to rescue Bhagat Singh etc., buying arms, buying cyclostyle machines to print party pamphlets, organizing provincial committees etc.
His revolutionary activities came to light on his arrest by the police. It happened this way. Chandra Shekhar Azad always carried with him a well-working Mouser pistol to face the ever-present dangerous exigencies that would arise in carrying out his revolutionary work. One day Azad said that while he was carrying out target practice his Mouser pistol had misfired and that he did not wish to keep such unreliable pistol any longer with him. At that time, Ram Charan Singh was present there and Azad gave this pistol to him for his use. As this pistol had no reliable working, it became later on a cause of troubles to him leading to his arrest and trial. At one occasion when the party under the leadership of Azad was carrying out a money-action at Gadodia Stores in Delhi to raise funds for the revolutionary activities, Ram Charan Singh, who was one of the participants in the action, accidentally got injured in the palm of his hand by this pistol. When he tried to take out this pistol, it went off on its own and the bullet pierced his palm.
In the aftermath of Viceregal Train outrage, there was great police activity in Delhi and several revolutionaries were arrested by the police. Bal Kishon (son of Ramji Lal Sharma), by occupation a Compounder, resident of village Khaira (Meerut district) was also arrested in Delhi. At the end of October 1930, Sardar Karam Singh, a C.I.D. man, came to Dr. H. Sen’s shop, where Bal Kishon was working as a Compounder, and went away after speaking with him. Bal Kishon had been treating Ram Charan Singh and applying dressing to his hand-palm injury. Next day at about 7 A.M., when Bal Kishon was returning from the house of Ram Charan Singh after applying a dressing to his injury, at a shop in Chawri Bazar close to the lane which leads to the Arya Samaj temple a police constable stopped him on the way and told that he was wanted for something. Bal Kishon told the constable to let him go to the shop of Dr. H. Sen and arrest him there if necessary but the constable made him sit in the bazaar. Then, a sub-Inspector and several constables arrived there and told him to come with them. They asked him where his house was. Bal Kishon replied that he had no house of his own and was staying with Ram Charan Singh in his house. The police told him to take them to the house of Ram Charan Singh and thereupon he took them to that house. On arriving there, the police searched the house. Ram Charan Singh, was not found there. Bal Kishon was taken to the Kotwali and arrested. Thus came Ram Charan Singh to the notice of the police for the first time and his troubles began from then on.
On coming to know of the arrest of Bal Kishon, he sensed his impending troubles and immediately deserted his house where he was living. An immediate secret arrangement of his stay was made by the party at an upper storey of a house in Matia Mahal where four or five other party members were already staying. But even this secret house was not safe enough as the police was out on its tip toes sniffing at every clue of the revolutionaries. After the blowing up of the Viceregal train the British Government got the wind of some big conspiracy being hatched by revolutionaries and the police was at its job with full might. After some time the house in Matia Mahal where injured Ram Charan Singh was staying was also raided in mid-night hours by the police. The house was surrounded by the police; all exit points of the house were guarded and a police detachment started climbing the staircase of the house. The revolutionaries staying in the upper storey were fully alert in their usual manner as if they were already waiting for this moment to happen. They immediately knew that the police was at their door-step and took no time to decide their next action i.e., fleeing away from the house. But it was a three-storied building, and the only exit from the house was by climbing down the staircase, which was now being used by the police. It was a dangerous moment for them and there was no time left now to think to devise some way out of the danger. They all immediately took a desperate decision – to jump from the house down to the ground. Fortunately for them, on the second storey of the house there was a projection (called Chhajja) to save them from directly falling to the ground from a height.
They all, one by one, jumped down from the third storey of the house to that projection on the second storey and, then from that place, jumped to the ground in the street. After landing on the ground, they all started running away in different directions. Finding that their prey were about to escape before their own eyes, the police stationed on the ground guarding the house immediately raised an alarm and ran in hot pursuit after the fleeing revolutionaries. Ram Charan Singh was being chased by several constables; while running after him, these police-men raised alarm saying, “Daku, Pakado, Daku” (catch hold of them, they are dacoits). On alarm being raised by the policemen, several ordinary people living in the neighborhood also joined in the chase and overtook the policemen in speed coming very close to Ram Charn Singh. Realizing that he was about to be caught by these compatriots, he said in a commanding voice, ‘Don’t touch us, we are revolutionaries!’ The pursuers at once gave way to allow him to escape, slowed down in speed, looked back to police-men as if to discourage them who were left far behind them and stopped the chase. Ram Charan Singh thus made good his escape from the police. After escaping from the police encirclement, while still injured in his left hand palm, he reached Barkali to take shelter in the safety of his native place. However, the police already had several revolutionaries in their dragnet and had information about him from them (under torture). Armed with this information, the police reached his village.
He was found there, arrested and taken away. Initially, he was not produced before a judicial magistrate and was kept in police custody for several days to get information about his revolutionary activities and particulars of his fellow revolutionaries. He pretended innocence and denied any wrongdoing. On being questioned the cause of the injuries in his hand, he offered a simpleton native explanation. He said he was an ordinary village boy landing a helping hand to his family occupation of agriculture and, while tethering his domestic oxen, the oxen pierced its horn into his left hand palm.
The police was not convinced of this explanation. When he did not succumb to the police pressure, he was produced before a judicial magistrate at Meerut. The magistrate directed that he be medically examined of his hand injuries. The district civil surgeon, an Englishman, examined him and prepared a medical report of his injuries. This medical report stated that the accused had one injury on the palm of his left hand that the injury was caused by some piercing object like bullet. Though the accused was arrested from a place in Meerut, was produced before a judicial magistrate there and medically examined by the civil surgeon of that place, he was an accused of a sedition case in Delhi. Therefore, after the medical examination at Meerut, he was directed by the judicial magistrate to be taken by the Delhi police to stand his trial there.
The police in Delhi was obsessed with the incidents of bomb explosions by revolutionaries. On reaching Delhi, he was produced before a judicial magistrate, who directed to conduct the medical examination of the accused. He was examined by the civil surgeon in Delhi and again a medical report of his injury was prepared. This time the report stated that the injury was caused by some explosion like a bomb.
After medical examination, he was given in remand to police custody by the court. Once in their custody, the police in Delhi questioned him about his activities. He again pretended innocence of any revolutionary activity. On being questioned the cause of the injury in his hand, he once again repeated the same native explanation that he was an ordinary villager, who while tethering his domestic oxen, was pierced by oxen with its horn in his hand palm. The police again was not convinced of this simple explanation. To break his spirit and to spill the beans of his revolutionary activities, police applied all tricks of the trade on him. He was threatened that he would be implicated in the seditious revolutionary activities, which may even involve his whole family; and he may be sent to gallows for these crimes; as an alternative to save himself and his family, he was offered to be let off accepting his explanation, provided he truthfully revealed his revolutionary activities and activities of his fellow revolutionaries.
But the trick did not work with him and he remained steadfast in his version of the story of the injury. The police finding him non-cooperative and not forthcoming in revealing the revolutionary activities carried out by him and his fellow activists, resorted to the last weapon in their arsenal, i.e. torture. While questioning him in custody, he was routinely forced by the police to lie down naked on ice-slabs for hours together. He was badly beaten and denied food for days together; and, then was given unwholesome food to eat. To force him to reveal the secret activities of revolutionaries, the police applied for and got several remand extensions from the court, and every time he was tortured in police custody.
This treatment broke his health and he developed dysentery. This ailment though was successfully treated later on when he was sent to jail as under trial prisoner by a kind English jail doctor, ultimately resurfaced again in his old age and became the cause of his untimely death in 1976. Broken in his health but not in spirit, he was sent in judicial custody to jail as under trial prisoner to stand trial on the charge of sedition. He remained in jail as under trial prisoner for more than one year.
During the trial, the prosecution’s case was that he had been participating in the seditious (read: revolutionary) activities (with other accused persons who were being tried independently in separate trials in different courts); these activities were aimed at overthrowing the government by the use of force; to achieving this objective of overthrowing the government by force, he was making bombs and exploding them. In support of this version, the prosecution relied, in addition to some police witnesses, chiefly on the medical report of the civil surgeon in Delhi. It was averred by the prosecution that the injury to the accused was caused by the explosion of a bomb.
To prove the contents of the report, which had stated that the injury was caused by an explosion like a bomb, the concerned civil surgeon was called as a witness in the court and examined by the prosecution. In his examination-in-chief (main examination) the civil surgeon stood by the correctness of his report. Then, he was cross-examined (confronted with his statements by asking questions) by the defense counsel. These questions and answers went like this. Q – You say that the injury of the accused was caused by a bomb explosion. A – Yes. Q – Could it be caused by a bullet? A – No. Q – Are you absolutely certain that it was caused by a bomb explosion and not by bullet? A – Yes, absolutely certain. Q – How can you be so certain? A – A bullet fired from a weapon would pierce through and through across the palm. But a bomb explosion would not so pierce through and through, as is the case with the injury of the accused. Q – How can you say that the wound of the accused was not through and through across the palm? A – I put a wire into the wound and tried to pass it through, which it did not. This pointed question by the defense and the pointed answer by the civil surgeon ended his cross-examination.
To rebut the prosecution case of a bomb explosion, the defense submitted the medical report of the civil surgeon of Meerut and summoned him as a witness in the court to prove his report. In his examination-in-chief, he stood by his report that the injury of the accused was caused by a bullet. He was cross-examined by the prosecution about his report. It went like this. Q – Could the injury of the accused be caused by a bomb explosion? A – No. Q - You say that the accused injury was caused by a bullet. A – Yes. Q - How can you say so? A – To make sure of the nature of the injury, I put a wire into the accused wound and it passed through it. This answer by a government civil surgeon completely demolished the prosecution case of the seditious activities of the accused by exploding bomb and saved Ram Charan Singh. He was acquitted of the charge.
To the great disquieting and discomfiture of the government, this unwanted outcome of his trial was caused by two factors: firstly, the over-enthusiasm of the prosecution to somehow prove that the accused was indulging in bomb-making activities of the revolutionaries to overthrow the government by force; and secondly, the credit to civil surgeon of Meerut for sticking to the truth of bullet injury. In fact, the wound was caused by a bullet. Ram Charan Singh, though acquitted of the charge by the trial court, suffered great brutalities at the hands of British government and remained in jail.
After his acquittal three Mouser pistols were offered by the party as a reward to Ram Charan Singh, out of which he kept one and concealed it in a cavity specially made for this purpose within a wooden-leveler (used by farmers to level agricultural fields). Even after the release from jail, he continued for some years his revolutionary work against the British Government and during this period his colleagues included Dharam Pal (of Dadari), Narayan Dev (of Daurala), Harvir Singh Rathi (of Barkali) Anoop Singh (of Barkali) etc. Harvir Singh Rathi was a very dear friend of him till his last days.
Two incidents of revolutionary nature of this period connected with his life may be mentioned here. One day in the evening Ram Charan Singh and Dharam Pal were going together somewhere near Begum Bridge in Meerut city. They both were riding a bicycle. There was an English policeman who was riding a horse and was on patrol in the area. When he saw these two persons riding a bicycle, he commanded, ‘hey, why there is no lamp (on the bicycle)?’ The riders did not reply. The policeman got off his horse and arrogantly moved to deflate the bicycle’s wheel-tubing. The revolutionaries were not awed in the least by the policeman’s demeanor and took the air-pump off their bicycle (which was already hooked on to their vehicle), and struck the policeman on head with this ready-made weapon. The victim cried in pain and raised alarm, and the revolutionaries made their escape leaving behind their bicycle.
On another occasion, Dharam Pal (resident of Dadari, now in district Ghaziabad) was carrying a suitcase with him that was full of fire arms, ammunition and revolutionary literature. He was having this suitcase tied across his back with a chaddar (a cloth) and was just about to board a train at a railway station. There the railway Station Master, an Englishman, saw him trying to board the train. He asked the revolutionary, ‘Have you paid the freight for this load?’ Finding no answer, he touched the suitcase to probe its weight and said, ‘It seems quite heavy. What is there in it?’ Dharam Pal replied, ‘There are books in it. I am a student.’ The Station Master said, ‘It is heavy. It has to be weighed.’ The Station Master made the pseudo-student follow him so that the contents of the suitcase may be weighed and the freight paid accordingly. The revolutionary knew that it was going to be end of the game for him. So while following the Station Master, he untied the suitcase and at the opportune moment hit the Englishman on head with this heavy suitcase, and made good his escape. The victim raised an alarm, ‘Terrorist is running away, catch hold of him’ but all in vain. On escaping from there Dharam Pal came to Ram Charan Singh in Barkali and took shelter there. Unfortunately, Dharam Pal had put in the suitcase, beside arms, ammunition and seditious literature, his photograph also that lead the police to identify him and he was proclaimed absconder. These revolutionary activities continued for some years.
However, in subsequent years, on account of the death of important leaders like Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh etc. and trials of many of its activists, HSRA was shattered and lost its vigor as an organization. Still, Ram Charan Singh remained a born-rebel throughout his life till his death in 1976. He first rebelled against the foreign rulers and then his rebellious spirit found resonance in Bhagat Singh’s dream of a ‘Socialist India’, and he joined Communist Party of India to fight against economic exploitation of the working class. In this work he found his colleagues in Acharya Dipankar, Rajender Singh ‘Warrior’, Musaddi Lal, Bharat Singh etc.
One incident in this context may be mentioned here. The home of Ram Charan Singh in Barkali had become a hotbed of communist revolutionaries and the village itself was nicknamed ‘Red Barkali’. During the incident of ‘Telangana Communist Uprising’ B. T. Randive was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India and there was a revolutionary get-together at Ram Charan’s house. Acharya Dipankar was also present there. He had risen from an ordinary poor family and was a self-made and self-taught communist revolutionary, who had lost one of his legs in one accident and had wooden leg to make him walk. That day, after the meeting was over, Acharya Dipankar and other revolutionaries boarded Ram Charan’s bullock cart and left for Daurala for an onward journey. It was a rainy season, it was raining cats and dogs and all mud tracks were flooded with water. When the party reached Daurala to board train it turned out that the wooden leg of the Acharya was missing. In the absence of the leg the journey of revolutionaries could not be continued and it was decided to return back to the village. However, on the way back the wooden leg was found floating in the water and was retrieved from there.
Those were the heyday of Soviet Power and the world was divided between two rival philosophies of way of life and camps of armed might. Ram Charan was inspired by the Bhagat Singh’s Socialist dream and was charmed by the Soviet glory.
In 1958 his dear wife – Shushila – died, which made him too sad, and he decided to end his life. At this critical moment of his life, he came into possession of a spiritual book (Thoughts and Glimpses) of Sri Aurobindo, which not only put an effective check to his decision to end his life but changed the entire course of his life thereafter. This book was given to him by Narendra Singh (of Kirthal), who was a teacher in Patla Inter College.
Being a voracious reader, he read many other books of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry) like Life Divine, Synthesis of Yoga and Mother’s Conversations etc. He found the charm of the Marxist Dialectical Materialism merely a stale mental exercise of an insignificant value when viewed in the light of a deeper spiritual purpose of life and the universe. Though he was not a highly educated person in formal sense, he was a self-taught person. He was a simple farmer living in a village but a voracious reader who first mastered the philosophical intricacies of the Marxist Dialectical Materialism and then the spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Also he was a prolific writer who wrote many articles and essays on difficult subjects of economics and philosophy, which remained unpublished.
After the death of his wife, instead of marrying again, he plunged himself headlong to the life of a Yogi devoted entirely to accomplish the spiritual goals of human life, till his death on August 9, 1976. He had a premonition of his approaching death and one day at the beginning of July, 1976 he told his relatives (Dharampal Singh and others at village Khanpur where he was staying at that time) that he was taking their leave forever. Perplexed, the relatives tried to reason with him; but in vain.
He felt there was something wrong with his body and, intending to take a naturopathy treatment, headed to Panchali Ashram (where such treatment is offered). There, he was made to eat raw vegetables for days and he developed serious dysentery. In such precarious condition he left the Ashram on his own and reached the main road intending to get some vehicle to take him to Meerut, where his sons were living. As the chance would have it, at that time the District Magistrate was passing through that road in his official vehicle. He beckoned the vehicle to halt and give him a lift to Meerut, which the District Magistrate happily gave and made him reach his family in Meerut.
He told his family his death has come and no treatment was possible. Even at his death bed, while still in possession of his consciousness and aware of his coming end, he bid all his dear family members to leave him absolutely alone so that he may prepare himself for his last journey in all joy. And, thus a revolutionary and a Yogi departed from this world with grace.
Rudra Dutt Mishra was born into a wealthy family of the Alwar region. Mishra was known to be very bold and was never intimidated. He was always the one to voice his opinions. Mishra was a doctor by profession. It is said that one day he was asked by a notorious robber of the area to accompany him and treat one of his ill relatives. Being the bold man he was, Rudra Dutt consented. He was blindfolded and led to the hideout where he successfully treated the patient and then dined with the robber himself.
Rudra Dutt has been known to throw a shoe at a British judge at a court hearing.
Rudra Dutt was very tall and was often mistaken for being a terrorist when he visited his village. He was in the innermost circle of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a freedom movement. Mishra's associates included Bhagat Singh, Chandrasheker Azad and all leading revolutionaries. The trial of some fourteen accused charged with conspiracy to commit murder and with other arms and explosives offences started in the main block of the Old Viceregal Lodge on April 15, 1931 where Bhagat Singh had been hanged on March 23, 1931.
On May 25, 1932, Rudra Dutt Misra, Dhanwantri, K B Gupta, B R Gupta, S H Vatsayana, Azad Vidyabhushan, Vaishampayan and Bhagirath Lal Harkesh, individuals who were the accused sent a petition from 'Old Viceregal Lodge, Delhi' to the viceroy in his summer residence in Shimla which is now a centre of advanced academic research. The conspiracy charge was finally dropped in February 1933 as untenable and the fact that there was not enough evidence to take it any further.Four of the accused were let off and the rest were to be tried individually 'for severe overt acts'.
Sachchidananda Vatsyayana was born on March 7, 1911 in a tent at Kushinagar, Kushinagar district of Uttar Pradesh. His father Hirananda was an archaeologist, and an expert in the Sanskrit language. His childhood was spent in many different places, including Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Nalanda, Udupi, Madras, Jalandhar, Jammu and Srinagar.
He did Intermediate from Madras Christian College in 1927, thereafter studied at Forman Christian College, Lahore, where he did his B.Sc. in Industrial Science 1929. After graduation he was included in Punjab University's "Cosmic Ray Expedition" to Kashmir under Prof. James Martin Baned. He joined M.A. English, but couldn't complete his studies as soon he joined the Indian independence movement's underground activities with Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Sukhdev and Yaspal. In November 1930 he was arrested under the fictitious identity of Mulla Mohammed Bux in Amritsar. He was kept in Lahore for one month, then spent three and a half years (1930–33) in jails of Delhi and Punjab in the infamous Delhi Conspiracy Case. Later he remained under house arrest for two months in the Fort and for two years at home. His classic novel-trilogy Shekhar: Ek Jivani was a product of those prison days. The third part of the novel was never published. In the beginning he was associated with the PWA (Progressive Writers Association) and was a member of the Anti-Fascist Front. During World War II in the wake of the fascist Japanese attack's threat he joined Indian ( that time Allied) Force for three years (1943–1946) as a Captain by mobilising people's resistance against the enemy. He left the army when the war was over.
It is not widely known that Bhawati Charan Vohra was the intellectual and ideological ‘brain’ of the HSRA. He is the author of many works usually attributed to Bhagat Singh – notably the Manifesto of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the HSRA. He was an ideologue, organiser, orator and a campaigner. He was born in July 1903 in Agra in a prosperous family, and his father Shiv Charan Vohra later bequeathed several homes to him. He was married to Durgavati at a young age.Durga ‘Bhabhi’, as she was popularly known, also became an activist in the movement. Best known for having accompanied Bhagat Singh on the train journey in which he made his escape in disguise after the Saunders killing, she was the one who led the funeral procession of Jatin Das in his departed body’s final journey from Lahore to Kolkata after his death in the 63-day jail hunger strike. All along the way, huge crowds joined the funeral procession. Vohra left college to join the satyagraha movement in 1921, and after the movement was called off, joined National College, Lahore where he got a BA degree. It was there that he was initiated into the revolutionary movement.
After Bhagat Singh’s arrest, Yashpal (the Hindi writer) and Vohra together made a partially successful attempt to blow up a train in which the Viceroy was travelling. His death on 28 May 1930 was tragic: while trying to make bombs to free Bhagat Singh from prison, a bomb accidentally exploded in his hand, killing him.